And white streets flame in righteous peace at last.
ON BEING ENTERTAINED ONE EVENING
BY COLLEGE BOYS
I walked across the bridge from New Jersey into Easton, Pennsylvania, one afternoon. I discovered there was a college atop of the hill. In exchange for a lecture on twenty-six great men[4] based on a poem on the same theme, that I carried with me, the boys entertained me that night. They did not pay much attention to the lecture. Immediately before and after was a yell carnival. There was to be a game next day. They were cheering the team and the coach with elaborate reiteration. All was astir.
But for all this the boys spoke to me gently, gave me the privileges of the table, the bath-room, the dormitory. The president of the Y. M. C. A. lent me a clean suit of pajamas. He and two other young fellows delighted my vain soul, by keeping me up late reciting all the poems I knew.
I record these things for the sake of recording one thing more, the extraordinary impression of buoyancy that came from that school. It was inspiring to a degree, a draught of the gods. Coming into that place not far from the centre of hard-faced Easton-town I realized for the first time what sheltered, nurtured boy-America was like, and what wonders may lie beneath the roofs of our cities.
THAT WHICH MEN HAIL AS KING
Would I might rouse the Cæsar in you all,
(That which men hail as king, and bow them down)
Till you are crowned, or you refuse the crown.
Would I might wake the valor and the pride,