HOW CAN ONE HEART HOLD
THEM BOTH ?

by William Herbert Carruth
 
HOW CAN ONE HEART HOLD
THEM BOTH ?
 
SNOWY bosoms, silks, and musk,
      Music, laughter, raillery, wit ;__
Thin forms slinking through the dusk 
      Where despair and famine flit: 
Poet, preacher, tell me sooth, 
How can one heart hold them both ? 
 
Books, seclusion, lettered labor,
      Burning thirst for name and fame;__
Helpful love for friend and neighbor, 
      Sympathy for blind and lame: 
Poet, preacher, tell me sooth, 
How can one heart hold them both ? 
 
Art, aesthetic teas, and science,
      Pride, precedence, pedigrees;__
Gaunt toil full of fierce defiance, 
      Hovels full of fell disease: 
Poet, statesman. teil me sooth, 
How can one State hold them both ? 
                                                                      
 

from
Each in His Own Tongue
and Other Poems
William Herbert Carruth
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1909)

 
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