In my reach, and if forsaking my convictions they are mine.
Do not so condemn the realists, rhymesters, authors, and their way,
Just because they point about us to the errors of to-day;
Spare them, though they gaze not upward from our self-wrought piteous plight,
For, though blinded and despairing, they are struggling toward the light.
Let the realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life,
Tracing in heartrending horror all the hoary wrongs and strife,
Till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin,
Hearkening through the roar of traffic to the still small voice within—
Voice which murmurs Christ’s own message as we circle round the sun: