PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

In the poem from which this excerpt is taken, Prometheus the Titan has been cruelly tortured for opposing the malignant will of Jupiter. In the end Prometheus wins a complete outward victory. Better still, by his steadfastness and high purpose he has won a great inward triumph. The spirit that has actuated him and the nature of his achievement are expressed in the following lines.

O suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

than death or night;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

VICTORY IN DEFEAT

The great, radiant souls of earth-the Davids, the Shakespeares, the Lincolns-know grief and affliction as well as joy and triumph. But adversity is never to them mere adversity; it

"Doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange";

and in the crucible of character their suffering itself is transmuted into song.

EFEAT may serve as well as victory

DE

To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Edwin Markham.

From "The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.

THE RICHER MINES

No man is so poor but that he is a stockholder. Yet many a man has no real riches; his stocks draw dividends in dollars and cents only.

WHEN it comes to buying shares

In the mines of earth,

May I join the millionaires.
Who are rich in mirth.

Let me have a heavy stake
In fresh mountain air-
I will promise now to take
All that you can spare.

When you're setting up your claim
In the Mines of Glee,
Don't forget to use my name-
You can count on me.

Nothing better can be won,
Freer from alloy,

Than a bouncing claim in "Con-
Solidated Joy."

You can have your Copper Stocks

Gold and tin and coal

What I'd have within my box
Has to do with Soul.

John Kendrick Bangs.

Permission of the Author.
From "Songs of Cheer."

BRAVE LIFE

To be absolutely without physical fear may not be the highest courage; to shrink and quake, and yet stand at one's post, may be braver still. So of success. It lies less in the attainment of some external end than in holding yourself to your purposes and ideals; for out of high loyalty and effort comes that intangible thing called character, which is no mere symbol of success, but success itself.

I Do not know what I shall find on out beyond the final

fight;

I do not know what I shall meet beyond the last barrage of night;

Nor do I care-but this I know-if I but serve within the

fold

And play the game-I'll be prepared for all the endless years may hold.

Life is a training camp at best for what may wait beyond the years;

A training camp of toiling days and nights that lean to dreams and tears;

But each may come upon the goal, and build his soul above all Fate

By holding an unbroken faith and taking Courage for a

mate.

Is not the fight itself enough that man must look to some behest?

Wherein does Failure miss Success if all engaged but do their best?

Where does the Victor's cry come in for wreath of fame or laureled brow

If one he vanquished fought as well as weaker muscle would allow?

If my opponent in the fray should prove to be a stronger foe

Not of his making-but because the Destinies ordained it

so;

If he should win-and I should lose-although did my

utmost part,

Is my reward the less than his if he should strive with equal heart?

Brave Life, I hold, is something more than driving upward to the peak;

Than smashing madly through the strong, and crashing onward through the weak;

I hold the man who makes his fight against the raw game's crushing odds

Is braver than his brothers are who hold the favor of the gods.

On by the sky line, faint and vague, in that Far Country all must know,

No laurel crown of fame may wait beyond the sunset's glow;

But life has given me the chance to train and serve within the fold,

To meet the test-and be prepared for all the endless years may hold.

Permission of the Author.

From "The Sportlight."

Grantland Rice.

A SONG OF TO-MORROW

A night's sleep and a new day-these are excellent things to look forward to when one is weary or in trouble.

LI'L bit er trouble,

Honey, fer terday;

Yander come Termorrer

Shine it all away!

Rainy Sky is sayin',
"Dis'll never do!

Fetch dem rainbow ribbons,
En I'll dress in blue!"

Printed in and permission from "The Atlanta Constitution.”

Frank L. Stanton.

THE GLAD SONG

Gladness begins with the first person, with you. But it may spread far, like the ripples when you toss a stone in the water.

Ring the glad-bells all along;
Smile at him who frowns at you,
He will smile and then they're two.

Laugh a bit, laugh a bit,
Folks will soon be catching it,
Can't resist a happy face;
World will be a merry place.

Laugh a Bit and Sing a Song,
Where they are there's nothing wrong;
Joy will dance the whole world through,
But it must begin with you.

Joseph Morris.

PAINTING THE LILY

Many people are not content to let well enough alone, but spoil what they have by striving for an unnecessary and foolish improvement. If they have a rich title, they try to ornament it still further; if they have refined gold, they try to gild it; if they have a lily, they try to paint it into still purer color.

THER

HEREFORE, to be possessed with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,

To gild refinéd gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

William Shakespeare.