Violets and Other Tales
art and art alone. [Pg 19]

FIRST

How few of us

In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife,

Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step,

And love it for its sake, whate'er it be.

Because it is a labor, or, mayhap,

Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift;

And not the promise of the world's slow smile

of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp.

Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash,

Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome

Of circling blue around this weary earth,

Can bask, and know the God-given grace

Of genius' fire that flows and permeates

The virgin mind alone; the soul in which

The love of earth hath tainted not.

The love of art and art alone.

[Pg 19]

 SECOND "Who dares stand forth?" the monarch cried, "Amid the throng, and dare to give Their aid, and bid this wretch to live? I pledge my faith and crown beside, A woeful plight, a sorry sight, This outcast from all God-given grace. What, ho! in all, no friendly face, No helping hand to stay his plight? St. Peter's name be pledged for aye, The man's accursed, that is true; But ho, he 
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