Gamaliel Bradford Poems

Others make verses of grace.
Mine are all muscle and sinew.
Others can picture your face.
But I all the tumult within you.
...

I've been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a
saint,
Their bend of weary knees and their con-
tortions long and faint,
...

You may think my life is quiet.
I find it full of change,
An ever-varied diet,
As piquant as 'tis strange.
...

My life is governed by the clock,
All duly mapped and plotted;
And only with a nervous shock
I miss the time allotted.
...

Down come the leaves,
Like fleeting years,
Or idle tears
Of love that grieves.
...

I might forget ambition and the hunger for success.
I might forget the passion to escape from nothingness.
I might forget the curious dreams of ecstasy that haunt
My fancy day and night. I might forget them. But I can't.
...

The ghost of night's long hours depart
In congregation dreary,
And leave my sorrow-trampled heart
Intolerably weary.
...

Of old our father's God was real,
Something they almost saw,
Which kept them to a stern ideal
And scourged them into awe.
...

You really can't imagine how I love the ancient Greeks.
I love the dancing language where their mobile spirit speaks.
I love the songs of Homer, flowing on like streams of light,
With a touch of human kindness in the splendid shock of fight.
...

I'm writing comedy again,
The daintiest pleasure known to men;
Unless a daintier might be
To watch your acted comedy:
...