Poem by Ina Donna Coolbrith

The Bribe

‘All These I Will Give Thee’

World plaudits!
Glamour of the tinsel crowd
In adulation! Fame, the meator Fame,
And Youth, still golden Youth!
The price-a Soul.

Failure! -if it be failure still to hold
The Dream unbroken!
Bent, paupered, old-
The great World turned aside,
Ever unhearing, from that Voice divine.
But still, else lost, the Voice divine his own,
No accent missing,
Still each cord supreme!
Failure! -if it be failure-his to be,
The Soul’s immortal Youth upon his brow,
One with endless rapture of all Sound,
Song of all Song,
The music of the spheres-
God’s Hand upon the Keys!

1. Carmel-by-the-Sea
2. Withheld
3. A Birthday Rhyme
4. After the Winter Rain
5. My “Cloth of Gold”

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