DuBose Heyward

Here lies a spendthrift who believed That only those who spend may keep; Who scattered seeds, yet never grieved Because a stranger came to reap.

Compassionate the mountains rise Dim with the wistful dimness of old eyes That, having looked on life time out of mind, Know that the simple gift of being kind Is greater than all the wisdom of the wise.

It is cruel for a woman with her man gone, An' the younguns allus hungry, an' winter comin' on.

You could not give me toys in those bleak days; So when my playmates proudly boasted theirs, You caught me to the shelter of your arms, And taught me how to laugh away my tears.

Porgy lived in the Golden Age. Not the Golden Age of a remote and legendary past; nor yet the chimerical era treasured by every man past middle life, that never existed except in the heart of youth; but an age when men, not yet old, were …