Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CRIPPLED, by MARION PELTON GUILD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CRIPPLED, by                    
First Line: Beethoven deaf, and milton blind!
Last Line: Crippled or no, we dare the race!
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Milton, John (1608-1674); Music & Musicians; Physical Disabilities; Wellesley College; Handicapped; Handicaps; Physically Challenged; Cripples


BEETHOVEN deaf, and Milton blind!
And you and I, of lowlier kind,
With small yet vital tasks assigned,

We too have known the spirit's ache
At special powers disabled, make
Our bitter plaint for the work's sake.

Yet where our blunted tools we mourn,
Divinest music strains are borne;
Beethoven, eye us not with scorn!

And Milton, of his sight bereaved,
Vision and victory achieved;
Twice must his crown be laurel-leaved!

Ah, can it be that Fortune mocks
With cruel-tender paradox
The lives she gives her hardest knocks,

And grants, in strange, relenting mood,
Some super-sensuous aptitude,
When well her maimings are withstood?

Fortune? Her shrine is grey and cold.
O Father of us all, behold
Our handicaps, how manifold!

Thou only know'st what self-wrong
Must in the grievous count belong.
Thou only makest weakness strong.

And in Thine all-resourceful mind
Alone our riddle is untwined, --
How he that loseth life shall find.

O crowning Answer, heartening Grace,
Lift Thou on us Thy regnant face, --
Crippled or no, we dare the race!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net