Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Betrayed Singer There came a singer through the world, The world of grim to-day, The fire of life was on his lips And in his heart the May. He sang a golden song of love, Of truth and truth's desire, And flung a majesty of might From his alluring lyre. He came to where the cliques of song, Life's grim Sanhedrim dwelt; They hated him because of all The truth he sang and felt. They hated him and cried him down, Because they saw in him The lark in heaven, sweet and clear, That made their singing dim. They slew him with their evil tongues, Their artful, false disdain, And life lost all that joy and hope That should have been its gain. They drove him from the doors of hope, The gates of human fame, Until in dusk of evil spite He died without a name. His melody went fading out, Till under heaven's bars His mighty music sobbed and sank, And melted to the stars. Then in his place they set them up False gods of tinsel show, Poor helot, soulless, mumming mock Of mighty long ago. And built them temples born of art Upon an evil time, When gold and power and pelf were prized, And rhyme was only rhyme. And starved the yearning sons of God Of beauty, love and truth, And gave them stones who asked for bread, In dread and shameless ruth. How long, 0 Life, this mighty ill, This reign of hate? How long Permit to dree their evil weird, Earth's murderers of song? Tlature Derse Nature Nature, the dream that wraps us round, One comforting and saving whole; And as the clothes to the body of man, The mantle of the soul. Nature, the door that opens wide From this close, fetid house of ill; That lifts from curse of street to vast Receding hill on hill. Nature, the mood, now sweet ...