New Height Books

Virtues in Verse: The Best of Berton Braley
by Berton Braley, Linda Tania Abrams

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To my knowledge, no poet has done so much with his work to glorify man consistently and rationally as Berton Braley. His poetry, usually jovial and light, praises intellect and invention over brute force, and pronounces that Man has every reason to be a proud, successful being. And the poetry itself is always well-written, paying strict attention to meter and rhyme, proving that verse limited to specific requirements can still move and sing.

In March of 1994 The Atlantean Press published Virtues in Verse, a collection of Braley at his best. Unfortunately Virtues in Verse, and everything else written by Berton Braley, is no longer in print, but with a little searching you can always find a few copies available on Amazon, or Abe Books, or eBay. You can also enjoy many of the poems transcribed online at the Berton Braley Cyber Museum. Here are the last two stanzas from one of my favorites, The Thinker:

Back of the motors humming
Back of the belts that sing,
Back of the hammers drumming.
Back of the cranes that swing,
There is the eye which scans them
Watching through stress and strain
There is the Mind which plans them-
Back of the brawn, the Brain!

Might of the roaring boiler,
Force of the engine's thrust,
Strength of the sweating toiler-
Greatly in these we trust.
But back of them stands the Schemer,
The Thinker who drives things through;
Back of the Job-the Dreamer
Who's making the dream come true!

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