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Title: The Price
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
In, or under, or over the earth,
What will fill you, and what suffice?
No matter how mean, or much its worth,
It is yours if you pay the price.
Never a thing may a man attain,
But gain pays loss, or loss pays gain.
Lady of riches, riot and rout,
Fair of flesh and sated of sense,
Nothing in life you need do without
Except the trifle of innocence.
Counterfeit kisses you paid, and got
Just what you paid for--which is what?
Man of adroitness, place and power,
Trampled above and torn below;
Set in the light of your noonday hour,
Playing a part in the public show;
Fooling the mob that the mob be ruled:
You know which is the greater fooled.
Artist of pencil, or paint, or pen,
Reed, or string, or the vocal note,
Making the soul to suffer again
And the wild heart clutch the throat;
Ever your fancy has paid in fact;
You rack my soul, as yours was racked.
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Price
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