Legends

Stephen Crane 1871 – 1900



I

A MAN builded a bugle for the storms to blow.
The focused winds hurled him afar.
He said that the instrument was a failure.

        II

When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?"
He replied: "Because no one admired me."

        III

A man said: "Thou tree!"
The tree answered with the same scorn: "Thou man!
Thou art greater than I only in thy possibilities."

        IV

A warrior stood upon a peak and defied the stars.
A little magpie, happening there, desired the soldier's plume, and so plucked it.

        V

The wind that waves the blossoms sang, sang, sang from age to age.
The flowers were made curious by this joy.
"Oh, wind," they said, "why sing you at your labour, while we, pink beneficiaries, sing not, but idle, idle, idle from age to age?"

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
43

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXX XA AXX XX BXB
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 782
Words 148
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 3, 2, 3, 2, 3

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was an American politician from Elizabethtown who was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776. more…

All Stephen Crane poems | Stephen Crane Books

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