Henry Grantland Rice Poems

1910 version

Game Called.
Across the field of play
the dusk has come, the hour is late.
The fight is done and lost or won,
...

'THERE are roads that lead through valleys where the
grass is soft and green ;
There are lanes that lead through morning where the
friendly maples lean;
...

GOOD Luck is like a down hill tide
That helps to make an easy start,
Where one may paddle, drift or glide
Without much effort on his part;
...

WHERE the puddle is shallow, the weakfish stay
To drift along with the current's flow ;
To take the tide as it moves each day
With the idle ripples that come and go ;
...

Back in the Vanished Country
There's a cabin in the lane,
Across the yellow sunshine
And the silver of the rain;
...

HERE I shall wait
To meet the rush of some relentless fate,
Content to know that I will be supreme
...

The cove who never kids himself,
Who looks at facts without a frown,
Who knows that life is full of knots,
And not a bed of eiderdown
...

THE road's a trifle hard ahead;
What of it?
With shadows somewhat thickly spread;
What of it?
...

'All wars are planned by older men
In council rooms apart,
Who call for greater armament
And map the battle chart.
...

GIVE me but room to fight my way,
I ask no other gift from Fate;
Though it should crowd on me at bay,
Where only ghosts and shadows wait.
...