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Th' dark days keeps my cheerfulness
From draggin'
In th' dust!

from "The Quiet Courage,"

Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Everard Jack Appleton

GLADNESS

A coal miner does not need the sun's illumination. He carries

his own light.

HE world has brought not anything

To make me glad to-day!

The swallow had a broken wing,

And after all my journeying
There was no water in the spring-
My friend has said me nay.

But yet somehow I needs must sing
As on a luckier day.

Dusk falls as gray as any tear,
There is no hope in sight!
But something in me seems so fair,
That like a star I needs must wear
A safety made of shining air
Between me and the night.
Such inner weavings do I wear
All fashioned of delight!

I need not for these robes of mine
The loveliness of earth,

But happenings remote and fine

Like threads of dreams will blow and shine
In gossamer and crystalline,

And I was glad from birth.

So even while my eyes repine,
My heart is clothed in mirth.

Anna Hempstead Branch,

From "The Shoes That Danced, and Other Poems,"
Houghton Mifflin Co.

IT WON'T STAY BLOWED

It is easier to fail than succeed. It is easier to drift downstream than up. But just as pent steam finds an escape somewhere, so will the man who persists break at one point or another through confining circumstance.

To the sniffing pickaninny once his good old mammy

"Yo' lil' black nose am drippin' from de cold dat's in yo head,

An' yo' sleeve am slick and shiny like de hillside when it snows.

Why doan' you pump de bellers from de inside ob yo' nose?"

"Ain't I been," the child replied to her, "a-doin' ob jes' dat Twel I's got a turble empty feel right whur I wears muh

Bat?

De trafic soht o' nacherly keeps gittin' in de road.
I blow muh nose a-plenty, but

it

won't

stay

blowed.

"What's de use ob raisin' chickens ef dey won't stay riz? What's de use ob freezin' sherbet ef it won't stay friz? What's de use ob payin' debts off ef dey's gwine stay

owed?

What's de use ob blowin' noses ef dey won't stay blowed?"

This old world is sometimes jealous of the chap who means to rise;

It sneers at what he's doing or it bats him 'twixt the eyes; It trips him when he's careless, and it makes his way so

hard

What's left of him is sinew, not a walking tub of lard; But it's only wasting effort, for by George, the guy

keeps on

When his hopes have crumbled round him and you'd think his faith was gone,

Till the world at last knocks under and it passes him a

crown:

Once, twice, thrice it has upset him, but

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What cares he when out he's flattened by the cruel blow

it deals?

He has rubber in his shoulders and a mainspring in his

heels.

Let the world uncork its buffets till he's bruised from toe to crown;

Let it thump him, bump him, dump him, but he won't stay down.

St. Clair Adams.

THE RAINBOW

Our lives are not a hodge-podge of separate experiences, though they sometimes seem so. They are held together by simple things which we behold again and again with the same emotions. Thus the man is what the boy has been; the tree is inclined in the precise direction the twig was bent.

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The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth.

THE FIRM OF GRIN AND BARRETT

It has been said that when disaster overtakes us, we can do one of two things-we can grin and bear it, or we needn't grin. The spirit that keeps a smile on our faces when our burden is heaviest is the spirit that will win in the long run. Many men know how to take success quietly. The real test of a man is the way he takes failure.

TO financial throe volcanic

Ever yet was known to scare it;
Never yet was any panic

Scared the firm of Grin and Barrett.

From the flurry and the fluster,

From the ruin and the crashes,

They arise in brighter lustre,

Like the phoenix from his ashes.

When the banks and corporations

Quake with fear, they do not share it;

Smiling through all perturbations

Goes the firm of Grin and Barrett.

Grin and Barrett,

Who can scare it?

Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett?

When the tide-sweep of reverses

Smites them, firm they stand and dare it,
Without wailings, tears, or curses,
This stout firm of Grin and Barrett.
Even should their house go under
In the flood and inundation,
Calm they stand amid the thunder

Without noise or demonstration.
And, when sackcloth is the fashion,
With a patient smile they wear it,
Without petulance or passion,
This old firm of Grin and Barrett.
Grin and Barrett,

Who can scare it?

Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett›

When the other firms show dizziness,

Here's a house that does not share it.
Wouldn't you like to join the business?
Join the firm of Grin and Barrett?
Give your strength that does not murmur,
And your nerve that does not falter,
And you've joined a house that's firmer
Than the old rock of Gibraltar.
They have won a good prosperity;
Why not join the firm and share it?
Step, young fellow, with celerity;
Join the firm of Grin and Barrett.
Grin and Barrett,

Who can scare it?

Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett?

From "Songs of the Average Man,"

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

Sam Walter Foss.

CHALLENGE

Napoleon is reported to have complained of the English that they didn't have sense enough to know when they were beaten. Even if defeat is unmistakable, it need not be final. A battle may be lost, but the campaign won; a campaign lost, but the war won.

LIFE, I challenge you to try me,

Doom me to unending pain;
Stay my hand, becloud my vision,
Break my heart and then-again.

Shatter every dream I've cherished,

Fill my heart with ruthless fear;
Follow every smile that cheers me
With a bitter, blinding tear.

Thus I dare you; you can try me,
Seek to make me cringe and moan,
Still my unbound soul defies you,
I'll withstand you-and, alone!

Permission of
"The New York Call."

Jean Nette,

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