Classic Poem

Homer and Milton blind, Beethoven deaf,
And Collins mad and Savage famishing,
And Marlowe huddled into a forgotten grave,
And Chatterton—and sorrows everywhere
Loading the witless air:

Calamity and Death hunt the same wood,
One strikes if other misses; neither rests,
Making of Eden daily desolation,
A bloody amphitheatre of Earth,
Cinders of April turf.

The enemies of Poetry, the fierce thieves
Of beauty's and creation's miracle,
Twin Caesars ravaging their captived Kingdoms,
For envy slaying what else lives undecaying,
Or maiming without slaying. …

If there were worser ills than Death to dream of,
Worse pangs than hunger's and the numbèd sense,
If even the long foul solitude of the grave
Ended not other griefs of other men,
And other fears; even then.

Poetry needs must breathe through lips of man
Desperate defiance and immortal courage,
Needs must hope bicker in his burning eye,
And Death and hunger, madness and despite,
Sink sullenly from sight.