A MINOR POET TO HIMSELF
SONNET
EDWIN PARTRIDGE LEHMAN '10
We lesser poets clothe in garb ornate,
In words of dizzy fire, in awkward phrase,
In humble thunderings, that only daze,
Though meant to rouse in flames of love or hate,
The thoughts that those brave souls of stuff divine,
Whose words breathe inspiration, have long since
In jewelled lines set forth. Where we bear hints
Of grape, they bear the ruddy full-pressed wine.
And yet the fire that thrills us is no less,
Nor coarser, than the fire that they, the great,
Have felt. Our pens are feebler; but the play
Of deep emotions, the fine stir and stress
That mark the soul's rare movements, are, in state,
Equal to those of lines that make men pray.
Literary Monthly, 1909.
HEARTS AND TARTS
AN OLD TALE RETOLD
DURR FRIEDLEY ex-'10
There was shouting and hand-clapping from all the gay company, and a shower of gay words for me when I had done with my singing; and my lord, greatly pleased, and prophesying that some day when I should be riper in years I might win the crown of peacock's feathers from the hands of the Princess Eleanor herself, bade me come on the morrow dawn to sing an alba under the casement of the bridal chamber. The bride, too, this new wife that had taken my own lady's place by my lord's side, she, come but yesterday from her thick-witted Bohemia, and whom, never loving, I might always truly pity, spoke me fair and besought me to make verses thenceforth in praise of none save her. I answered as best I might, but I fear me my speech came but falteringly, what with my heart beating against my ribs like the armor-smith's hammer, and the thought uppermost in my mind of the dark business yet to come that night, before the shame and wrong of it all might be righted—a black business that none but I in all that company wotted of.