Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MIDGET DANCE, by JOHN LAWSON STODDARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MIDGET DANCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I scan the storied pages
Last Line: Finds life . . . A midget dance!
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Life; Love; Nations; War; Youth


I scan the storied pages
That tell of deeds of old,
Of heroes and of sages,
Of wars for love and gold,
Of man's slow-paced progression
From history's distant dawn, --
The long, sublime procession
Of races that are gone.

The slow disintegration
Of temples and of faiths,
The mournful transformation
Of deities to wraiths,
The struggle for existence
O'er hecatombs of lives,
The terrible persistence
Of evil that survives, --

Work -- wealth -- vice -- swift effacement
Through weakness or through war,
The pitiless replacement
By those of sounder core, --
All these are forms, unending,
Of racial ebb and flow,
As mounting, or descending,
The nations come and go.

Each State, in turn uplifted,
Sees other States recede;
Not one, however gifted,
Can long retain its lead;
The wrecks of vanished glory
Line every classic shore;
Once told, a splendid story
Repeats itself no more.

Youth shuns these storied pages,
So stained with blood and tears;
The lesson of the ages
It leaves for later years;
And since none heeds the warning
And each will have its way,
The same unchanging morning
Brings ever the same day.

So always we keep turning,
Like insects in the sun,
The worth of life first learning,
When life itself is done;
And Youth, the Past ignoring,
Boasts ever of "advance",
While Age, the Past exploring,
Finds life . . . a midget dance!





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