Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/133

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THE READING-CLUB.
15

To cultivate our spirits with the Whyfore's classic flow,
To benefit the Thereness with the Highness of the How,
To flood the dark with radiance from the Thisness of the Now.

"What good has she accomplished?" Oh, never doubt her thus!
It must be useful to reveal the Plusness of the Plus,
To illustrate with corkscrew words the Whichness of the Us.

Mock not, poor common mortal, when thoughts like these appear,
Illumining our labor with the Howness of the Here,
And blazing like a comet through the Nowness of the Near.

Some day in Realms Eternal such grand mist-haunted souls,
Inscribe their words of Whichness on Whereforeantic scrolls,
In that great world of Muchness which through the Maybe rolls.

Then shall we each acknowledge the Whyness of the Whence;
Each understand completely with Sensefulness of Sense,
The Thusness of the Therefore, the Thatness of the Thence.

J. Edgar Jones.

AT ARLINGTON.

The broken column, reared in air,
To him who made our country great,
Can almost cast its shadow where
The victims of a grand despair
In long, long ranks of death await
The last loud trump, the judgment sun,
Which comes for all, and soon or late
Will come for those at Arlington.

In that vast sepulchre repose
The thousands reaped from every fray;
The men in blue who once uprose
In battle front to smite their foes —
The Spartan bands who wore the gray.