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Voicework of CloudMountain
Alan Davis Drake
Update: 6/2/07 at 10:14 AM
 
Stephen Crane

(01 November 1871 — 05 June 1900)
 

Stephen Crane on Wikipedia

Poems found here are from either of Stephen Crane's two volumes, War is Kind, Frederick A. Stokes, Co., New York,1899 or The Black Riders & Other Lines, Copeland and Day, Boston, 1896

 
 
The trees in the garden rained flowers
The trees in the garden rained flowers.
Children ran there joyously.
They gathered the flowers
Each to himself.
Now there were some
Who gathered great heaps --
Having opportunity and skill --
Until, behold, only chance blossoms
Remained for the feeble.
Then a little spindling tutor
Ran importantly to the father, crying:
"Pray, come hither!
See this unjust thing in your garden!"
But when the father had surveyed,
He admonished the tutor:
"Not so, small sage!
This thing is just.
For, look you,
Are not they who possess the flowers
Stronger, bolder, shrewder
Than they who have none?
Why should the strong --
The beautiful strong --
Why should they not have the flowers?"
Upon reflection, the tutor bowed to the ground,
"My lord," he said,
"The stars are displaced
By this towering wisdom."