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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Greatness Lives Apart

Freeman E. Miller

Great natures live apart; the mountain gray
  May call no comrade to his lonely side;
The giant ocean, wrapped in storm and spray,
  Has no companion for her endless tide;
  The forest monarch, where his parents died,
Can find no brother in his lofty sway,
  And mighty rivers chafe their margins wide
Where infant rills and childish fountains play.

So heroes live; no raptured blossoms start
  Where rugged heights of human glory end;
  No tender songs of loving beauty blend
Their chorus in the great man’s peerless heart;
Fate fills their souls with magnitude, and art
  Supplies their lives with no congenial friend.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Oklahoma and Other Poems | Charles Wells Moulton, 1895
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