TO-DAY

The past did not behold to-day; the future shall not. We must use it now if it is to be of any benefit to mankind.

So here hath been dawning

Another blue day;

Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?

Out of Eternity

This new day is born;
Into Eternity,

At night will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did;
So soon it for ever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning

Another blue day;

Think, wilt thou let it

Slip useless away?

Thomas Carlyle.

UNAFRAID

HAVE no fear. What is in store for me

I Shall find me ready for it, undismayed.

God grant my only cowardice may be
Afraid-to be afraid!

From "The Quiet Courage,"

Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Everard Jack Appleton.

BORROWED FEATHERS

Many good, attractive people spoil the merits they have by trying to be something bigger or showier. It is always best to be one's self.

AROOSTER one morning was preening his feathers

That glistened so bright in the sun;

He admired the tints of the various colors
As he laid them in place one by one.
Now as roosters go he was a fine bird,
And he should have been satisfied;
But suddenly there as he marched along,
Some peacock feathers he spied.

They had beautiful spots and their colors were gay—
He wished that his own could be green;
He dropped his tail, tried to hide it away;
Was completely ashamed to be seen.

Then his foolish mind hatched up a scheme-
A peacock yet he could be;

So he hopped behind a bush to undress

Where the other fowls could not see.

He caught his own tail between his bill,
And pulled every feather out;

And into the holes stuck the peacock plumes;
Then proudly strutted about.

The other fowls rushed to see the queer sight;
And the peacocks came when they heard;

They could not agree just what he was,

But pronounced him a funny bird.

Then the chickens were angry that one of their kind
Should try to be a peacock;

And the peacocks were mad that one with their tail
Should belong to a common fowl flock.

So the chickens beset him most cruelly behind,
And yanked his whole tail out together;
The peacocks attacked him madly before,
And pulled out each chicken feather.

And when he stood stripped clean down to the skin,
A horrible thing to the rest,

He learned this sad lesson when it was too late

As his own simple self he was best.

Joseph Morris.

KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON

The author of these homely stanzas has caught perfectly the spirit which succeeds in the rough-and-tumble of actual life.

THE DISAPPOINTED

Those who have striven nobly and failed deserve sympathy. Sometimes they deserve also praise unreserved, in that they have refused to do something ignoble which would have led to what the world calls success. They have lived the idea which Macbeth merely proclaimed:

"I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none."

T

HERE are songs enough for the hero
Who dwells on the heights of fame;

I sing of the disappointed

For those who have missed their aim.

I sing with a tearful cadence

For one who stands in the dark,
And knows that his last, best arrow
Has bounded back from the mark,

I sing for the breathless runner,
The eager, anxious soul,

Who falls with his strength exhausted,
Almost in sight of the goal;

For the hearts that break in silence,
With a sorrow all unknown,
For those who need companions,
Yet walk their ways alone.

There are songs enough for the lovers
Who share love's tender pain,
I sing for the one whose passion
Is given all in vain.

For those whose spirit comrades

Have missed them on their way,
I sing, with a heart o'erflowing,
This minor strain to-day.

We speak of the comforts and ease of old age, but our noblest selves do not really desire them. We want to do more than exist We want to be alive to the very last.

L

ET me live out my years in heat of blood!

Let me die drunken with the dreamer's wine!
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust-a vacant shrine!

Let me go quickly like a candle light
Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow!
Give me high noon-and let it then be night!
Thus would I go.

And grant that when I face the grisly Thing,
My song may triumph down the gray Perhaps!
Let me be as a tuneswept fiddlestring

That feels the Master Melody-and snaps.

Permission of the Author.

From "The Quest" (collected lyrics),
The Macmillan Co.

John G. Neihardt.