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Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 1855-1919

"Poems of Purpose"


Bestow the sacrament! Their sins are not well known -
Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.

A HOLIDAY

Berlin, Germany, gave the school children a half holiday to celebrate the
sinking of the Lusitania.
War declares a holiday;
Little children, run and play.
Ring-a-rosy round the earth
With the garland of your mirth.
Shrill a song brim full of glee
Of a great ship sunk at sea.
Tell with pleasure and with pride
How a hundred children died.
Sing of orphan babes, whose cries
Beat against unanswering skies;
Let a mother's mad despair
Lend staccato to your air.
Sing of babes who drowned alone;
Sing of headstones, marked 'Unknown';
Sing of homes made desolate
Where the stricken mourners wait.
Sing of battered corpses tossed
By the heedless waves, and lost.
Run, sweet children, sing and play;
War declares a holiday.

THE UNDERTONE

When I was very young I used to feel the dark despairs of youth;
Out of my little griefs I would invent great tragedies and woes;
Not only for myself, but for all those I held most dear
I would invent vast sorrows in my melancholy moods of thought.
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there was an undertone of rapture.


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