Yea, cast our lives into the ancient slough, And fall we shouting, with uplifted face; Over the spot where mired we struggle now Shall march in triumph a transfigured race. They shall exult where weary we have wept— They shall achieve where we have striven in vain— Leaping in vigor where we faintly crept, Joyous along the road we paved with pain. What though we seem to sink in the morass? Under those unborn feet our dust shall sing, When o’er our failure perfect they shall pass. Forth, and make firm a highway for the King! _Don Marquis_ Donald Robert Perry Marquis was born at Walnut, Bureau County, Illinois, July 29, 1878. Since his boyhood he has been actively connected with various newspapers, his chief metropolitan success being due to his pungent column, “The Sun Dial” in the New York _Evening Sun_. Many of Marquis’s most penetrating and satiric skits have been collected in his prose volumes, _Hermione_ (1916) and _Prefaces_ (1919). Besides his burlesque verse, Marquis has written a quantity of serious poetry, the best of which he published in _Dreams and Dust_ (1915). UNREST A fierce unrest seethes at the core Of all existing things: It was the eager wish to soar That gave the gods their wings. From what flat wastes of cosmic slime, And stung by what quick fire, Sunward the restless races climb!— Men risen out of mire! There throbs through all the worlds that are This heart-beat hot and strong And shaken systems, star by star, Awake and glow in song. But for the urge of this unrest These joyous spheres are mute; But for the rebel in his breast Had man remained a brute. When baffled lips demanded speech, Speech trembled into birth— (One day the lyric word shall reach From earth to laughing earth.)— When man’s dim eyes demanded light, The light he sought was born— His wish, a Titan, scaled the height And flung him back the morn! From deed to dream, from dream to deed, From daring hope to hope, The restless wish, the instant need, Still lashed him up the slope! · · · · · · I sing no governed firmament, Cold, ordered, regular— I sing the stinging discontent That leaps from star to star! _John Erskine_