Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, YOUTH'S AMBITION, by ANNA GRACE BOYLES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

YOUTH'S AMBITION, by                    
First Line: At five he wants to be a fireman
Last Line: Quite indispensable.
Subject(s): Youth


At five he wants to be a fireman
And has a veritable passion to wear red;
He dreams of hatchets, hose and ladder,
And saving little Cousin Lucia's life;
At seven a picturesque cowboy strikes his fancy,
And Tom Mix becomes his cherished idol:
He visualizes the colorful Western prairies
And the excitement of the rodeo;
When his years advance to ten he feels the urge
To be a G-Man, and secret codes cause
His little brow to wrinkle with intensity;
He now captures bandits on a large scale.
At twelve he wants to discover new worlds
And sail the heavens in a gigantic plane;
Now Lindbergh is the hero of the day,
And welcoming crowds acclaim his glory in parade.
At fifteen he yearns to build a temple to the sky,
That dwarfs the Empire State Building fifty feet
And is the most majestic in all the world;
Now he preaches a stirring sermon to the masses.
At seventeen he dreams of winning the Pulitzer Prize
For a literary achievement that is without peer,
That brings in royalties by the millions
And makes him eligible to the Hall of Fame.
And the years roll on in enthusiastic sequence;
He envisions himself as another Alex Carrel,
A Henry Ford and, eventually, President of the United States.
But at twenty-four he's married to dark-eyed Loraine
And renting an ivy-covered bungalow on the outskirts
Of a grubby little town that has no special place upon the map.
And he's wondering if he might summon up courage enough
To ask the boss for another raise . . . !
After all, he is the chief-shipping-clerk and
Quite indispensable.





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