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Title: Hush
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
What's the best thing that you ever have done?
The whitest day,
The cleverest play
That ever you set in the shine of the sun?
The time that you felt just a wee bit proud
Of defying the cry of the cowardly crowd
And stood back to back with God?
Aye, I notice you nod,
But silence yourself, lest you bring me shame
That I have no answering deed to name.
What's the worst thing that ever you did?
The darkest spot,
The blackest blot
On the page you have pasted together and hid?
Ah, sometimes you think you've forgotten it quite,
Till it crawls in your bed in the dead of the night
And brands you its own with a blush.
What was it? Nay, hush!
Don't tell it to me, for fear it be known
That I have an answering blush of my own.
But whenever you notice a clean hit made,
Sing high and clear
The sounding cheer
You would gladly have heard for the play you played,
And when a man walks in the way forbidden,
Think you of the thing you have happily hidden
And spare him the sting of your tongue.
Do I do that which I've sung?
Well, it may be I don't and it may be I do,
But I'm telling the thing which is good for you!
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Hush
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