Always the worm in the bud, the fly in the amber, Something your delicate soul Sniffs at and turns from, while men in raw multitudes clamber Upward from famine and fear and oppression and pain Led by red beacons and white and great dreams of a goal, Through anguish again and again! Always the finicking touch, the too-critical spasm, The highly superior sneer,— Here, in a world that is cleft by black chasm on chasm, Here, where emotions alone give the courage to sweep Wrong from its stronghold, and triumph o'er baseness and fear,— Emotions you speak of as "cheap"! You will be posed and correct in the ultimate Sheol, Cynical, shallow, and vain, Far too well-groomed and well-taught to be touched by the real, Bragging your sense of "adjustment," deploring the rage, Unrest, and despair and new faith of us, "coarser of grain,"— "Carpers" at odds with our age! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUT NOT TO ME by SARA TEASDALE I SAW A STABLE by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE A RUNNABLE STAG by JOHN DAVIDSON OLD FOLKS AT HOME by STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER A MIDSUMMER'S NOON IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST by CHARLES HARPUR A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE by ALICE MEYNELL |