Amelia Earhart

 

Amelia Earhart 

Emptied is old Lorenzo’s royal crypt;

Breathless now stands the startled Taj Mahal;

Amelia lies in that blue manuscript-

The sea, true heroine’s memorial.

So, she achieves. What if the fatal prize

Be misty tomb with airy marble set?

Who knows where Desdemona’s kerchief lies,

Or where the last word of dark Juliet?

A sudden courage plucks us from ourselves,

Bids us be heroine though death the price;

Wherefore we bed on many lilied shelves

The straight defenders of the sacrifice.

Count her among the beautiful and brave,

Her turquoise mausoleum in each wave.

-         Nathalia Crane

 

Courage 

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace

The soul that knows it not, knows no release

from little things;

Knows not the livid loneliness of fear

nor mountain heights, where bitter joy can hear

the sound of wings.

How can life grant us boon of living, compensate

for dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate

Unless we dare

The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay

with courage to behold restless day

And count it fair.

-    Amelia Earhart

 

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