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Lyric Poem · Childhood

Tradition, thou art for suckling children

by Stephen Crane

1Tradition, thou art for suckling children,

2Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;

3But no meat for men is in thee.

4Then —

5But, alas, we all are babes.

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Quick facts

Poem
Tradition, thou art for suckling children
Poet
Stephen Crane
Length
5 lines
Form
Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes
Childhood, Sad, Short

Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Stephen Crane1871–1900
Source record
PoetryDBTradition, thou art for suckling children by stephen-crane, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 27dd658786a58d05
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policyReport a text or rights issue

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