Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MERCHANT ADVENTURERS (WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO SIMEON STRUNSKY), by BERTON BRALEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS (WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO SIMEON STRUNSKY), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Merchant adventurers sending their galleys
Last Line: Merchant adventurers still!
Subject(s): Merchants; Trade


(With acknowledgments to Simeon Strunsky for the theme)

Merchant Adventurers sending their galleys
Seaward from Sidon and Tyre,
Freighting their wares over mountains and valleys,
Desert and jungle and mire.
Merchant Adventurers—traders of Venice
Peddling their goods overseas,
Dauntless in face of the terrors that menace;
Merchant Adventurers, these!

Merchant Adventurers—"English Exploiters"
Sailing the perilous Main,
Threading the haunts where the Buccaneer loiters,
Dodging the galleons of Spain.
Merchant Adventurers—dealers and jobbers,
German, Italian and Gaul,
Fighting the greedy baronial robbers
—Merchant Adventurers, all!

Merchant Adventurers! All through the ages
Somehow their business was done,
(Seeking their profit and paying their wages)
Everywhere under the sun.
Jasons of trade who were ceaselessly faring
Over new countries and seas,
Shopkeepers canny, courageous and daring,
Merchant Adventurers, these!

Now? Writers damn them as "commonplace Babbitts,
Clogging the path of advance,
Middle-class dullards of standardized habits,
Utterly lacking romance!"
If we believe all these critics and censurers
Business is humdrum to-day,
Gone is the spirit of Merchant Adventurers
Crumbled to dust and decay!

Don't you believe it—that spirit is glowing
Under the Business Man's vest;
Jasons of Trade are still joyously going
Forth on a magical quest.
Gambling with Fate, burning bridges behind them,
Wagering all in the till,
Bucking the world for a profit, you'll find them
Merchant Adventurers still!





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