Richard Hovey (1864 – 1900)
American composer, poet and playwright.
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Nor love they least
Who strike with right good will
To vanquish ill
And fight God’s battle upward from the beast.
In all climes we pitch out tents,
Cronies of the elements,
With the secret lords of birth
Intimate and free.
For ’t is always fair weather
When good fellows get together
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.
Spring in the world!
And all things are made new!
How loving is the Lord God and how strong withal!
Love seeks a guerdon; friendship is as God,
Who gives and asks no payment.
The people blossoms armies and puts forth
The splendid summer of its noiseless might.
The East and the West in the spring of the world shall blend
As a man and a woman that plight
Their troth in the warm spring night.
Fair weather weddings make fair weather lives.
The great white cold walks abroad!
There are worser ills to face
Than foemen in the fray;
And many a man has fought because—
He feared to run away.
Praise be to you, O hills, that you can breathe
Into our souls the secret of your power!
Shall the iron argue with the smith what it would be?
Or, shall the wrought iron reason with the monger
To whom it would be sold?
Who would not rather founder in the fight
Than not have known the glory of the fray?
There is no sorrow like a love denied
Nor any joy like love that has its will.
I have need of the sky,
I have business with the grass;
I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling
Lone and high,
And the slow clouds go by.
I will get me away to the waters that glass
The clouds as they pass.
I will get me away to the woods.
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