Classic Poem

I HEARD a strange philosophy, which taught
The Art is Man, the Artist is his Art;
That Poetry lives fleshly in the heart
Of poets, and mechanic in their thought.
And then, as oft before some ruined shrine
I have seen the pious man stand awed and pale,
So I, to see my heart's ideal trail
In dust and grey in ashes, once divine.
Yet came the Spring, and o'er the fleetness ran
A breath of song, a subtle fire, a life,
A voice: Say not the sum of things is man;
For like the wave-rolled spiral shell is he,
Wherein a vaster voice rings rich and rife —
A shadowy murmur of the parent sea.