I am not thy pampered steed,
I am not thy welcome dog;
I am of a lower breed
Even than thy Berkshire hog;
I am thy neglected child—
Make me grow, but keep me wild.
In many of Cotter's verses there is a sonorous flow which is evidence of poetic power made creative by passion. Didacticism and philosophy do not destroy the lyrical quality. In The Book's Creed this teacher-poet makes an appeal to his generation to be as much alive and as creative as the creed makers of other days were. The slaves of the letter, the mummers of mere formulas, he thus addresses:
You are dead to all the Then,
You are dead to all the Now,
If you hold that former men
Wore the garland for your brow.
Time and tide were theirs to brave,
Time and tide are yours to stem.
Bow not o'er their open grave
Till you drop your diadem.
Honor all who strove and wrought,
Even to their tears and groans;
But slay not your honest thought
Through your reverence for their bones.
Cotter is a wizard at rhyming. His “Sequel to the Pied Piper of Hamelin” surpasses the original
