Poem February 26, 1910 Issue

[Written for the Sentinel.]

THE SUM OF MANHOOD

KATHARINE J. SMITH.

A seer of Teman counseled one in woe,
Whose cup of blight and banishment severe
But seasoned faith to bide the bitter flow
Till tale of loss should ring with saintly cheer,—

Man, like a leaf unnurtured, shall not stay,
But quaking, seek his doom of sodden clay.

Eternity's serene undialed hours
Prove vain the time-fixed riddles of the wise;
Doth mortal glory range above the flowers?
The helmsman's answer is the seas that rise;
And woodsman, by his evening ember, marks
The destiny of upward-going sparks.

Not as the destiny of drifting leaves,
That flutter down to russet autumn's web;
Nor doom of floodtide shock, that shoreward heaves
And by recession's instant law doth ebb;
Nor quick-quenched spark is manhood's holy sum;
For man, with Being blent, hath death undone.

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