Frank Oliver Call’s speaker pleads with a modern poet to turn away from sorrow, ugliness, and industrial imagery—railways, iron, steel, coal, and smoky cities. He already knows the world’s pain and feels these subjects cannot feed his soul. What he longs for is beauty: forests, meadows, sunlight, children’s laughter, rivers, and boys swimming. Such images, he believes, can refresh tired eyes and lift a heavy heart.
The mood is wistful and earnest, even a little weary. The speaker does not deny that sorrow exists; he admits it may walk beside him to the end. But he trusts that if beauty leads him on, the world’s strife will soften and the road will end in peace. It is a gentle argument for beauty as a source of comfort and hope, not mere escape.