Edmund Vance Cooke

So you tell yourself you are pretty find clay
To have tricked temptation and turned it away,
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So you tell yourself you are pretty find clay
To have tricked temptation and turned it away,
But wait, my friend, for a different day;
Wait till you want to want to!

The North! the South! the West! the East!
No one the most and none the least,
But read more

The North! the South! the West! the East!
No one the most and none the least,
But each with its own heart and mind,
Each of its own distinctive kind,
Yet each a part and none the whole,
But all together form one soul;
That soul Our Country at its best,
No North, no South, no East, no West,
No yours, no mine, but always Ours,
Merged in one Power our lesser powers,
For no one's favor, great or small,
But all for Each and each for All.

But as for all the rest,
There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test.
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But as for all the rest,
There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test.
The Artist is a rare, rare breed. There were but two, forsooth,
In all me time (the stage's prime!) and The Other One was Booth.

It is not the weight of jewel or plate,
Or the fondle of silk or fur;
"Tis read more

It is not the weight of jewel or plate,
Or the fondle of silk or fur;
"Tis the spirit in which the gift is rich,
As the gifts of the Wise Ones were,
And we are not told whose gift was gold,
Or whose was the gift of myrrh.

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my
own just above the others; because in read more

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my
own just above the others; because in it I recognize the union
and culmination of my own. To me it seems as if when God
conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was
Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it
with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal
Drama.