To build the trout a crystal stair; To comb the hillside’s thick green hair; To water jewel-weed and rushes; To teach first notes to baby thrushes; To flavor raspberry and apple And make a whirling pool to dapple With scattered gold of late October; To urge wise laughter on the sober And lend a dream to those who laugh; To chant the beetle’s epitaph; To mirror the blue dragonfly, Frail air-plane of a slender sky; Over the stones to lull and leap Herding the bubbles like white sheep; The claims of worry to deny, And whisper sorrow into sleep! FROST ON A WINDOW This forest looks the way Nightingales sound. Tall larches lilt and sway Above the glittering ground: The wild white cherry spray Scatters radiance round. The chuckle of the nightingale Is like this elfin wood. Even as his gleaming trills assail The spirit’s solitude, These leaves of light, these branches frail Are music’s very mood. The song of these fantastic trees, The plumes of frost they wear, Are for the poet’s whim who sees Through a deceptive air, And has an ear for melodies When never a sound is there. _Amelia Josephine Burr_ Amelia Josephine Burr was born in New York City in 1878. She was educated at Hunter College and has made her home in Englewood, New Jersey. A great range of interests has been the outstanding feature of her work. Too often she yields to her own facility, but there is decided vigor in many pages of _The Roadside Fire_ (1912), _In Deep Places_ (1914) and _Life and Living_ (1916). BATTLE-SONG OF FAILURE We strain toward Heaven and lay hold on Hell; With starward eyes we stumble in hard ways, And to the moments when we see life well Succeeds the blindness of bewildered days,— But what of that? Into the sullen flesh Our souls drive home the spur with splendid sting. Bleeding and soiled, we gird ourselves afresh. Forth, and make firm a highway for the King. The loveless greed the centuries have stored In marshy foulness traps our faltering feet. The sins of men whom punishment ignored Like fever in our weakened pulses beat; But what of that? The shame is not to fail Nor is the victor’s laurel everything. To fight until we fall is to prevail. Forth, and make firm a highway for the King.