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POEMS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

I

UNSUBDUED

HAVE hoped, I have planned, I have striven,

To the will I have added the deed;

The best that was in me I've given,

I have prayed, but the gods would not heed.

I have dared and reached only disaster,

I have battled and broken my lance;

I am bruised by a pitiless master

That the weak and the timid call Chance.

I am old, I am bent, I am cheated
Of all that Youth urged me to win;
But name me not with the defeated,
Tomorrow again, I begin.

-S. E. Kiser

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BEMS

THAT HAVE HELPED

THE

E poems contained in this collection have in most cases found favor with other compilers. With a few exceptions they have long been doing duty as "old favorites, " to be found here and there in scrap books or buried within the depths of bulky volumes such as collectors generally deem it necessary to put forth. It is for the purpose of placing these masterpieces of the poets within easy reach of those who occasionally feel the need of encouragement and consolation that the present compilation is offered.

There are people, no doubt, who have never, after reading an inspiring poem, risen with renewed determination and strengthened hopes-who have never, after suffering defeat or bereavement, found in some well remembered line or stanza a comforting word or a message of cheer. To these unfortunate ones this little book will make no appeal; but to the many who have been made better and stronger and nobler and kinder because their hearts have responded to the appeal of the inspired poet, because they have lacked only the power of expression to be worthy of enrollment among the immortals, - this symposium is dedicated.

An effort has been made to keep the volume small, to avoid the inclusion of poems that might have a tendency to defeat or obscure the purpose for which the collection was intended. In some cases but one or two stanzas have been taken from long

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