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Title: Fact Versus Form
Author: Jared Barhite [
More Titles by Barhite]
As shadows are to material forms,
As mists to the copious shower
As dead calms are to tornado storms
That in tropical region lower
So are educational fallacies
That ignore and decry as naught
The value and power that ever lie
In the scope of original thought.
No smooth device with a soulless form
Should obscure the living thought;
It smothers the mind, destroys the charm
That comes to him who has wrought
To discover new truth, by a truth well known,
On which he may safely build,
Till his mental strength by use has grown
To a giant strong and skilled.
When thought is secure, the reason clear,
And the language to tell is pure,
Abridgement comes like a friend sincere,
For it cannot the mind obscure.
The wasted time on a form-clad task
Steals gems from youth's precious years,
Leaves a wreck on life's shore, we cannot mask
With our sorrows and sighs and tears.
If what we have learned has given no power
To acquire what yet we must learn,
If all our past struggles leave not a dower
To which we may joyously turn
And feel that a strength within us is given
Through efforts already bestowed,
In vain have we lived, in vain have we striven,
Each task is the same weary load.
If task of to-day shall not lighten th' one
May come upon us to-morrow,
It is but a proof our work was ill done,
And bodes to us grief and sorrow.
Ev'ry effort of mind applied aright
Augments the mental perception,
For God aids the brave, and giveth a light
To shine away imperfection.
There's a magic power in a task well done,
There's a charm in solid reason,
There's a mighty force in a victory won,
Which an alert mind will seize on,
And with giant strength that is thus acquired
March on till the fields of science
And the zones of thought wherein man aspired
Shall be won by self-reliance.
[The end]
Jared Barhite's poem: Fact Versus Form
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