Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/21

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Preface

When want or woe or fear is at the throat,
So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
Pressed from the sore heart, or strange wild note
Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength
Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine,
Which has more height than breadth , more depth than length .
Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,
And he that will may take the sleek, fat phrase,
Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine;
Light but not heat—a flash but not a blaze.

Nor is it mere strength that the short word boasts;
It serves of more than fight or storm to tell—
The roar of waves that dash the rock-ribbed coasts,
The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell,
The roar of guns, the groans of men that die
On blood-stained fields. It has a voice as well
For them that far off on their sick beds lie,
For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead,
For them that laugh and dance and clasp the hand .

To joy’s quick step as well as grief’s low tread,
The sweet plain words we learn at first, keep time
And though the theme be sad or gay or grand,
With each, with all these may be made to chime
In thought or speech or song or prose or rhyme.

Our language needs all its plain, short, strong words—all its clean words, for they

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