Classic Poem

Men named her once, in far Hellenic days,
The sacred Muse, for power was hers, divine;
She fired great Homer's lips, and, 'mid the kine,
Laureled Theocritus, whose pipe still plays
On capes of blue ... Ah, Poets, who shall raise
A paean to the Muse in her decline?
How will ye meet, if ye her claims resign,
The incriminating splendor of her gaze?

High aims are yours; — to clasp the spirit gleams, —
Mould them, immutably, in forms apart;
Poems to weld, — red from the human heart;
Annunciation of ethereal themes,
And unimagined, World-fraternal dreams, —
Fit consummation of the poet's art.