Page:Trees Kilmer.djvu/51

TREES AND OTHER POEMS

TO CERTAIN POETS (continued) Your tiny voices mock God's wrath,

You snails that crawl along His path!

Why, what has God or man to do

With wet, amorphous things like you?

This thing alone you have achieved:

Because of you, it is believed

That all who earn their bread by rhyme

Are like yourselves, exuding slime.

Oh, cease to write, for very shame,

Ere all men spit upon our name!

Take up your needles, drop your pen,

And leave the poet's craft to men! [ 45 ]