The snake's wit evadeth not, It should count thee for nothing. Thine own eye divineth thee, Thine own soul arraigneth thee; God himself cannot shrive thee Till that judge forgive thee. Joseph Kussell Taplor THE FLUTE PUFFED up with luring to her knees Grouped round the dreaming oaten quill Tune done, that agile fancy stopped, A lilt that charmed and lulled to mute And all that warbling ecstasy Upon her. The third tune was caught Arthur Colton A SONG WITH A DISCORD THOUGH Winter come with dripping skies, And laden winds and strong,. Yet I'll read summer in her eyes Who grieves because the world is old, LIGHTER than dandelion down, Or feathers from the white moth's wing, Out of the gates of bramble-town The silkweed goes a-gypsying. Too fair to fly in autumn's rout, All winter in the sheath it lay; Through mullein, bramble, brake, and fern, Up from their cradle-spring they fly, Softly, as if instinct with thought, They float and drift, delay and turn; And one avoids and one is caught Between an oak-leaf and a fern. And one holds by an airy line The spider drew from tree to tree; And if the web is light and fine, 'Tis not so light and fine as he ! And one goes questing up the wall As if to find a door; and then, As if he did not care at all, Goes over, and adown the glen. And all in airiest fashion fare But give God time; and life is but a span, INFINITY I DARE not think that thou art by, to stand And face omnipotence so near at hand! Barrett Eastman RICHARD SOMERS His body lies upon the shore, And over him shine tropic suns; "Follow me!" and goes before. Above him droop the languid trees, Nor sees the waters rock the moon, Vain But when the Trumpet sounds alarms Then out from his unquiet bed JOY ENOUGH INTO the caverns of the sea And no man knoweth what is there, It may be we shall find our kin It may be we with them shall lie, It matters nothing if to-day, Reward? What would you? Have not we William Vaughn Moody FROM "AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION" 1900 ROBERT GOULD SHAW THE wars we wage Are noble, and our battles still are won And scramble in the market place of war; Up the large ways where death and glory meet, To show all peoples that our shame is done, That once more we are clean and spiritwhole. Crouched in the sea fog on the moaning sand All night he lay, speaking some simple word From hour to hour to the slow minds that heard, Holding each poor life gently in his hand And lo, the shard the potter cast away Great wine of battle wrath by God's ringfinger stirred. Then upward, where the shadowy bastion loomed Huge on the mountain in the wet sen light, Whence now, and now, inferual flowerage bloomed, Bloomed, burst, and scattered down its deadly seed, They swept, and died like freemen on the height, Like freemen, and like men of noble breed; thrust Obscurely in a common grave with him We are our fathers' sous: let those who lead us know! T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred, And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth, East, west, and south, and north, Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, By the unforgotten names of eager boys Who might have tasted girls' love and been stung With the old mystic joys And starry griefs, now the spring nights |