Classic Poem

I

O Youth ! O conquering and insatiate Youth!
How proud the challenge of thy flashing eye!
How dominant the wide and noble brow!
Thy mounting step how eager for the race,
Thy carriage how puissant! Crowds fall back
At thy imperious gesture; leaders crave
Merely the happiness to follow thee;
And bended Age, whose rusted sickle lies
In the scant harvest of remembered days,
No longer carps, but feels again the thrill
Of the ambitious and dew-scented dawn.
Art thou of human dust, or from the clouds, —
Some missing god come down Olympian slopes?

II

I heard a voice of music, as though Health
Were singing to the Sun. These were the words:
" This is my day, my world, my beckoning sea.
My birthright is to venture and explore.
I need no chart. I make no timid draft
On bankrupt knowledge. Listen: Life's my toy —
Yes, if you will, to break or throw away.
Your Prudence is a coward. Old Experience
Dies with each generation. I shall learn
From Obstacle and Violence, scorning both.
Life's but a game and I shall ask no odds,
Nor if I suffer shall I weep or whine.
Walk your worn treadmill and your pleached paths
Of imitation, till at last you lie
In patterned graves, and have not lived at all.
For me the elements — sun, storm, sea, flame,
The unlonely stars. I seek the absolute,
And what you make a task I make a joy. "

III

Last night there lay upon an alien strand,
Spoil of the tempest and the cruel tide,
A strong and valiant swimmer, who had been,
With Youth's disdain, on many a happy day,
Companion of the white and emerald waves.
Say not her fearless courage has been lost
When but her strength, o'ermatched, was spent and spurned,
And lies supine, a thing for awe and tears.
Fear not to praise it now, for unto Love
There is no body till the soul hath fled.
Tomorrow it shall rise on wings of flame
To seek the undaunted spirit that the sea
Drowned not in drowning her breath in its own.