A Poet Stood Forlorn

A poet stood forlorn at break of day.
His comrades had forsaken, one by one;
Lured by applause that greets the lesser play —
The perfect phrase to even cadence spun.
A poet stood forlorn;
His soul awinged, his foot upon a thorn.

Upon his left the wine cup's cheering glow;
Upon his right Delila's lustrous eyes.
Forward, the flagons of the melted snow
And holy manna broken in the skies:
And one small voice that said:
" My laurel wreath shall grace thy simple spread. "

They stooped to do the Lesser Thing, and said:
" We will come back to-morrow to the Great, "
(My brother poets) " For we must be fed. "
Does ever man return who thus tempts fate?
The foolish lamb is shorn:
But there's no tempered wind where thoughts are born.

Were I not cold how should I come to know
One potent pleasure of the sun's sweet rays?
Or did I never breast the driving snow
What bliss were sweetest kernel of June days?
This Lesser Thing
Brings warmth that droops in drowsiness the wing.

Applause might hurt that look of straight intent
Until I lost the wonder of the whole.
There's music on the merchantman; my ship —
An argosy — is silent as my soul.
For them 'tis food and wine:
With one lone star my fasting soul shall dine.

" There's pleasant music in the whirring wheel;
Listen to it awhile; then to the seas. "
Thus spake the tempter; but I knew full well
Such sounds would haunt all future symphonies:
And through all time my verse
Would shroud its beauty in a soulless curse.

A perfect thing I might create, and then
Strike faultless notes with an impassioned hand.
But perfect phrase is not the speech of men
Whose brows are by the winds of passion fanned.
And they, who dare to rise,
Shall stumble most as they approach the skies.

Applauds the world the work of plane and rule:
Cheers the toy moon mounting the toy stage.
If stars were sown in even rows one school
Would praise Diana and her equipage
Spirit of Cowper! rise.
In Pope we find too much perfection lies.

This is the Greater Thing I deem: a song
As sings the skylark in its roundelay;
Notes bursting, leaping, dancing in a throng;
Crowding like children loosed from school, for play:
A race on silver bells
Toward the mystic haunt where Beauty dwells.

Perchance the even music of the line
May stumble on some inharmonious sound —
Some proper discord that doth but refine —
For this should we reject the sweet when found?
The sparrow twitters true
In level phrase the skylark never knew.

The violet on the mountain side is scarred —
A beauty scar, the finger of the storm —
Ungentle winds have kissed the sea and marred
To greater beauty its impassioned form.
'Twas imperfection's gain
That split this elm and made it grow in twain.

In one famed park, that sires a perfect craft,
With listless steps but yestermorn I strolled.
Before me rose a sun-dial's mantled shaft
Whose shadows fell on gardens wrought in gold.
And here, beneath my feet,
I found a wild flower and its breath was sweet.

Torn were its petals; broken was its stem:
(A child of charity amid those flowers.)
I touched it as those faithful touched the hem
Of Jesu's garment, to enlist its powers.
And straightway I was healed;
The burdened sense was gone: wild music pealed.

Low bent the pine: the sunbeams danced on rocks:
Fair clouds drew silken veils across the sun.
The poplar dressed her elves in silver frocks.
(The wind transformed them from the sombre nun)
And laughter, half discord,
Pealed through the air — a tribute to the Lord.

Who gleans no beauty from a cold, gray sky
Doth gather none when it is flaming red.
Who knows no rapture when sad breezes sigh
Feels none, aright, when balmy zephyrs tread,
With whispering feet, on flowers
Yearning to bud beneath warm April showers.

There is more loveliness in one lone flower
That hungers, on the cliff, her parent mould
Than all the pomp, Arrangement, in its power,
Ever displayed in rows of shining gold.
The sweetest song of bird
Is that whose note is half guessed and half heard.

Methinks I see a group in Paradise.
(My brother poets who have gone before.)
There's gentle laughter in each spirit's eyes
That sends a merry message to this shore.
And wherefore all this mirth!
Their lowly glances ever seek the earth.

And where they look reclines a little band,
Themselves have dubbed the censors of our verse,
Who walk with stern iambics, in each hand,
And fixed rules with which to praise or curse;
And who declare as nought
The rugged phrase where poets trip on thought.

Cold critic! scornful since our time began
Of every templar of immortal muse;
What choric note conforms unto thy plan
Shall never light with passion's holy fuse.
For, since old. Triton's horn
First woke the seas, the great have felt thy scorn.

" Browning insane or we " all Oxford cries.
The milk and water poet is our Keats.
Sad Poe and robust Whitman seek new skies;
And Goldsmith wears away old London's streets.
And Byron, fired by youth,
Strangles old Blackwood's with a grain of truth.

Shall Scottish pens subdue our English bards?
Or Yankee thimbles quench Canadian fires?
They prune their shrubs in Boston's timid yards
And shudder at Ungava's lordly spires.
And five small plots have they
Wherein a " man who fits " may, monthly, play.

Pray let me introduce this man; he writes
A cultured song — whoever may command.
He has a book: it says; lights rhymes with nights;
Jig rhymes with pig and sand with contraband.
(Poor Burns had no such book:
His rhyme beside this man's would sorry look.)

His verse is even as a sparrow's cry —
Always a passport on the modern mart.
God gives us men who dare where eagles fly;
Who soar with bruised wing and bleeding heart
Above the crags of song
About whose base the vassal singers throng.

I'll play to some lone shepherd on the hill
The rugged harmonies that free my soul.
The Lesser Thing may please Ambition's will
But surely will it burn with shame my scroll.
O, brother poet, hear:
Stray back where steps are rough but skies are clear.

A poet stood forlorn at break of day;
His comrades had forsaken, one by one.
Yet, in his ear, an angel whispered: " They
Shall cease to sup when thy feast is begun.
Keep thou thine eye ahead:
They live the most who to the most are dead. "
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