• Author: New York Mail
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 8 29 1917
• Tags:
• poetry

THE SWEET, PLAIN WORDS

Think not that strength lies in the big, round word, Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak. To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, When want, or woe, or fear is at the throat, So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Pressed from the sore heart, or strange, wild note Sung by some fay or fiend? strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine, Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length. Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, And he that will may have the sleek, fa phrase, Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine; Light, but not heat—a flash without a blaze. Nor is it mere strength that the short word boasts; It serves of more than fight or storm to tell— The roar of waves that dash the rock-bound coasts, The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell. The roar of guns, the groans of men that die On blood-stained fields. It has a voice, as well, For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead, For them that laugh and dance and clasp the hand, To Joy’s quick step, as well as grief’s low tread, The sweet, plain words we learn at first keep time, And though the theme be sad or gay or grand, With each, with all, these may be made to chime In thought, or speech, or song, or prose, or rhyme.

— New York Maxal.