The Weakling: A Poem
Improvement Era, vol. 20, no. 5, March 1917, p. 430
Frost, Grace Ingles
430 IMPROVEMENT ERA
"I doubt," says Albert J. Beveridge, "if any man can be a great speaker who does not have in him the religious element." It is this "religious element" that puts him in genuine sympathy with humanity and its struggles and strivings, and awakens in him the deep conviction concerning truth and right, that always finds utterance in clear, strong speech. Eloquence is truth aglow. It is a great soul's heart throbs set to words. It is more. It is the earnest plea of a soul in which is blended the simplicity and honesty of a Lincoln, the zeal of a Peter and the courage of a Paul.
The Weakling
Who 'bides with lips set close when tongues are loosed, To heap some fellow-creature with abuse, Just or unjust, Who raises not a voice that would defend, Nor turns those barbed arrows from a friend, The weakling is.
Who with a silent cowardice doth stand, While base Oppression devastates the land, Though it perchance, Touch not the nearer precincts of his own, Flesh of his flesh and bone of his own bone, The weakling is.
Who born and cradled in the warm, smooth lap Of luxury is e'er content to nap The hours away, While others by the sweat of brow must win Their daily bread, escapes not from the sin Of weakliness.
Who hastes not to make strong each rank of right, Nor lifts in clarion tones her slogan's might, Where finds he place? With those, the puny minions, that bewail Not desecration's tomb, 'tis they who fail, Earth's weakling sons. Grace Ingles Frost.