The Project Gutenberg EBook of Young People's Pride, by Stephen Vincent Benet

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Title: Young People's Pride

Author: Stephen Vincent Benet

Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8403]
Posting Date: August 11, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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YOUNG PEOPLE'S PRIDE

_A NOVEL_

By Stephen Vincent Benet

Illustrations By Henry Raleigh

Copyright, 1922 By Henry Holt And Company

_First printing, August 1922_

TO ROSEMARY

If I were sly, I'd steal for you that cobbled hill, Montmartre,
Josephine's embroidered shoes, St. Louis' oriflamme,
The river on grey evenings and the bluebell-glass of Chartres,
And four sarcastic gargoyles from the roof of Notre Dame.

That wouldn't be enough, though, enough nor half a part;
There'd be shells because they're sorrowful, and pansies since
they're wise,
The smell of rain on lilac-bloom, less fragrant than your heart,
And that small blossom of your name, as steadfast as your
eyes.

Sapphires, pirates, sandalwood, porcelains, sonnets, pearls,
Sunsets gay as Joseph's coat and seas like milky jade,
Dancing at your birthday like a mermaid's dancing curls
--If my father'd only brought me up to half a decent trade!

Nothing I can give you--nothing but the rhymes--
Nothing but the empty speech, the idle words and few,
The mind made sick with irony you helped so many times,
The strengthless water of the soul your truthfulness kept true.

Take the little withered things and neither laugh nor cry
--Gifts to make a sick man glad he's going out like sand--
They and I are yours, you know, as long as there's an I.
Take them for the ages. Then they may not shame your
hand.

"... For there groweth in great abundance
in this land a small flower, much blown about
by winds, named 'Young People's Pride'..."

DYCER'S _Herbal_

YOUNG PEOPLES PRIDE

I

It is one of Johnny Chipman's parties at the Harlequin Club, and as
usual the people the other people have been asked to meet ar