 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
L'AUDACE
Daughter of God! Audacity divine—Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign—
Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,
Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:
Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,
Presumption, actuates the charging ass.
Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings
Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings;
The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,
For thou, the subject, shouldst sustain the song,
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Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,
They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;
The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs
Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.
Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand
For stronger voices and a harder hand—
Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,
And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |