his guest through many silent hours of these thirty-seven years:
TO A CHILD READING
My darling, spell the words out. You may creep
Across the syllables on hands and knees,
And stumble often, yet pass me with ease
And reach the spring upon the summit steep.
Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep
These charr'd orbs out, but that you then might cease
Your upward effort, and with inquiries
Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep!
I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink
Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring--
No matter, to its rim a few drops cling,
And these refresh me with the joy to think
That you, my darling, have the morning's wing
To cross the mountain at whose base I sink.
But Edward Doyle has not sunk "at the mountain's base." He is far up its
summit, and he will go higher. He has found God, and nothing can hinder
his flight. He is an inspiration to all struggling, toiling souls on
earth.
As I read his book, with its strong clarion cry of faith and joy and
courage, and ponder over the carefully finished thoughts and beautifully
polished lines, I feel ashamed of my own small achievements, and am
inspired to new efforts.
Glory and success to you, Edward Doyle.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
[Illustration]
TRUE NATIONALISM
(_From the "Maccabaein", June, 1920._)
THE JEWS IN RUSSIA
From town and village to a wood, stript bare,
As they of their possessions, see them throng.
Above them grows a cloud; it moves along,
As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare.
Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair,
The looming of their life of cruel wrong
For countless ages? No; their faith is strong
In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer.
A flash of light, and black the despot lies.
What thunder round the world! 'Tis transport's strain
Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain
No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise
Into a cloud, and in the sky remain
Till they draw lightening from Jehovah's eyes."
The author of this superb little gem, like Homer, is blind; but, like
Homer, his mental vision is clear, and broad, and deep. President
Schurman, of Cornell University, commenting on Doyle once said: "It
is as true today as of yore that the genuine poet, even though blind,
is the Seer and Prophet of his generation." The poem here p
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