Classic Poem

I

I SHALL not get my poem done
Or hardly started, even;
But God will understand, I think,
And let me work in Heaven.

Or, if His plan is different
For Love, and Toil, and Art,
He'll let some red, appeasing flower
Burst from my buried heart.

II

I cast my nets in many streams
To catch the silver fish of dreams:
In vain I pant, pursue and dip —
They through the straining meshes slip.

And still I go my bootless ways
Through starry nights and striving days,
With naught to show for all my greed
But bits of shell and water-weed.

III

Dropped feathers from the wings of God
My little songs and snatches are,
So light He does not hear them fall
As He goes by, from star to star.

Dropped feathers from the wings of God
I find, and braid them in my hair;
Men heed them not — they only make
My soul unto herself more fair.