Ay, better storm and famine and the arrow from the

thicket,

Along the trail to wider lands that glimmered out

beyond.

Pioneers, pioneers, the quicksands where you wallowed,

The rocky hills and thirsty plains-they hardly won your heed.

You snatched the thorny chance, broke the trail that others followed

For sheer joy, for dear joy of marching in the lead.

Your wagon track is laid with steel; your tired dust is sleeping.

Your spirit stalks the valleys where a restive nation teems.

Your soul has never left them in their sowing, in their reaping.

The children of the outward trail, their eyes are

full of dreams.

Pioneers, pioneers, your children will not reckon The dangers on the dusky ways no man has ever

gone.

They look beyond the sunset where the better countries beckon,

With old faith, with bold faith to find a wider

dawn.

Reprinted by permission of the author and Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Lincoln, the Man of the People

Edwin Markham

For biographical note concerning Edwin Markham, see "The Man With the Hoe," page 103.

This selection is more oratorical than lyric. It should be delivered directly to the audience with sincerity and power. A superb effect can be secured by a proper rendering of the words "lonesome place" in the last line.

WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,

She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road-
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face;
And laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers,
Moving-all hushed-behind the mortal veil.
Here was a man to hold against the world,
A man to match the mountains and the sea.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth; The smack and tang of elemental things:

The rectitude and patience of the cliff;

The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;
The friendly welcome of the wayside well;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;

The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The secrecy of streams that make their way
Under the mountain to the rifted rock;
The tolerance and equity of light

That gives as freely to the shrinking flower
As to the great oak flaring to the wind-
To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky.

Sprung from the West,

He drank the valorous youth of a new world.
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind,
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul.
His words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts
Were roots that firmly gripped the granite truth.

Up from log cabin to the Capitol ;

One fire was on his spirit, one resolve—
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong,
Clearing a free way for the feet of God.
And evermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king:
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,
The conscience of him testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart;
And when the judgment thunders split the house,
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again
The rafters for the Home. He held his place—
Held the long purpose like a growing tree-

Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Theodore Roosevelt

Leon Huhner

Leon Huhner is a busy attorney in New York City, yet his patriotic ardor compels him to take time now and then to voice in verse his love for his country and its great men,

In the following poem an eloquent and deserved tribute is paid to an outstanding American. Slow rate and large volume are required to voice effectively this eulogy.

GIGANTIC figure of a mighty age!

How shall I chant the tribute of thy praise,
As statesman, soldier, scientist, or sage?
Thou wert so great in many different ways!

And yet in all there was a single aim—

To fight for truth with sword and tongue and pen! In wilderness, as in the halls of fame,

Thy courage made thee master over men.

Like some great magnet, that from distant poles
Attracts the particles and holds them fast,
So thou didst draw all men, and fill their souls
With thy ideals,-naught caring for their past,
Their race or creed. There was one only test:
To love our country and to serve it best!

Reprinted by permission of the author.

The West

Douglas Malloch

Douglas Malloch was born in Muskegon, Mich, May 5, 1877. He began working in Detroit as newspaper reporter, and after some years was made editor. He has written some prose and a great deal of verse relating to the forest and lumber camps, and contributes to the leading magazines.

A world-wide vision is necessary for a correct interpretation of this poem. Note that the for in the second line means because, and is not the same in meaning as the for in the first line. Care will be needed in determining the antecedent of they in first line of the second stanza.

MEN look to the East for the dawning things, for

the light of a rising sun,

But they look to the West, to the crimson West, for the things that are done, are done.

The eastward sun is a new-made hope from the dark of the night distilled;

But the westward sun is a sunset sun, is the sun of a hope fulfilled!

So out of the East they have always come, the cradle that saw the birth

Of all the heart-warm hopes of man and all of the hopes of earth

For out of the East arose a Christ and out of the

East has gleamed

The dearest dream and the clearest dream that ever a prophet dreamed.

And into the waiting West they go with the dreamIchild of the East,