With what lyrical eloquence, subdued, yet direct and compelling, Smythe calls the soul, in pure poetry, to achieve its spiritual destiny, in this lyric, simple in diction and structure, but sublimated, in thought:—
What shall it profit a man
To gain the world—if he can—
And lose his soul, as they say
In their uninstructed way?
The whole of the world in gain;
The whole of your soul! Too vain
You judge yourself in the cost.
’Tis you—not your soul—is lost.
Your soul! If you only knew—