Classic Poem

He is fallen, the poet, from his high estate.
How he hath fallen, God knows, and only God.
The high ethereal stairs he would have trod
Have vanished from beneath his feet of late,
And he is vanquished by uneasy fate,
And sinks upon a damp inferior sod,
And, mournful, breaks his sweet divining rod,
And sighs a broken-hearted sad " Too late! "

Ah, God, make poets not, or make them wise,
Girded with power to accomplish their high ends.
Thou givest them that fire within their eyes
That flush of songfulness, — and why should one
Whose force from first to last on thee depends,
While dawn still glimmers, lose faith in the sun?