| |
| THROUGH his million veins are poured | |
| The splendors of the heaven whence he fell. | |
| Wise above his thought is he: | |
| Deep things he has to tell | |
| To such as with a swift dexterity | 5 |
| Can aptly gloss his tangled word. | |
| To an eternal song he frames his dance, | |
| And urges his advance | |
| Through numbers, motions intricately woven. | |
| No pedant’s eye avails to scan | 10 |
| The tumult of his foaming line, | |
| Whose music owns a rule divine | |
| To ears that once have caught the plan. | |
| His notes so delicate and fine | |
| My rudely fingered stop would crumble; | 15 |
| Only some easier tones I twine | |
| To wreathe my homely line. | |
| But, ah, the strength, the scope, the vision, | |
| … the cadence sweet! | |
| What bard could in his rhyme imprison, | 20 |
| Or bind with a melodious fetter, | |
| The prance of these fine feet! | |
| |
| “Whence I come or whither I go, | |
| I little question, for well I know | |
| What I am, ’t is joy to be; | 25 |
| Laughter is my vesture, | |
| And a god of revelry | |
| Beckons in my gesture. | |
| I love my proper daemon well; | |
| Summons he, I haste to follow | 30 |
| Through balmy grove or grassy dell, | |
| Or mountain’s tempest-haunted hollow. | |
| |
| “Only to the sober eye | |
| The gods withdraw the curtains of the sky | |
| Pressed from an immortal vine, | 35 |
| Temperance is eternal wine. | |
| Who drinks my liquors chaste and cool | |
| May slight the Heliconian pool: | |
| He has no need to steal a sip | |
| From Hafiz’ bowl, or bathe his lip | 40 |
| In honey pressed from Pindar’s comb, | |
| Or taste of Bacchus’ philtered foam, | |
| Or filch from Chaucer’s bounteous grace | |
| Some liquid, limpid, purling phrase. | |
| He shall take with heavenly sleight | 45 |
| In springe of couchant rhyme | |
| The holy syllables, that in their flight | |
| Skim the meads of Time, | |
| And sometimes tarry for a night. | |
| Lark-like they warble sweet and clear | 50 |
| Up and down the bustling sphere: | |
| Happy he that skills to hear | |
| Their feathery oarage light. | |
| |
| “Wide waves the harvest of sweet song, | |
| Long since the gods have sown the seed: | 55 |
| Thither a thousand reapers throng, | |
| But since the flinty stalks grow strong | |
| Their sickles clip the easier weed. | |
| Strives one with sweat and sober heed, | |
| And limbs that ache and hands that bleed, | 60 |
| To sheave some score of stems: | |
| The dear wise world, that loves the weed, | |
| His heavenly task condemns. | |
| |
| “I know ye, folk of birth and death, | |
| And of what troublous stuff is spun | 65 |
| The feeble tissue of your breath: | |
| I know your fashions every one,— | |
| Your gait and features smooth or grim, | |
| From him that wakes a raw papoose | |
| To him whose tongue his parents loose | 70 |
| With babbling of a Christian hymn. | |
| Well I know the woman’s wail, | |
| Who comes, like bird from forage-quest, | |
| With loaded bill unto her nest, | |
| And finds her tender chitlings dead: | 75 |
| What beak hath brought ye death instead? | |
| Sorrowful numbers flock around, | |
| Earth-born ditties full of tears, | |
| The loss, the cross, the myriad fears | |
| That sting and madden and confound. | 80 |
| Ye call the law of your own fate | |
| Rough to the feet, unfriendly, cold; | |
| But if the heart be free and bold, | |
| It turns to beautiful and great. | |
| Come forth and love it, and ’t is thine, | 85 |
| Works like a strong man by thy side; | |
| But dodge or weep or fall supine, | |
| Or take a lesser thought for guide, | |
| The pebble of the rill | |
| Has power to kill. | 90 |
| |
| “For my frolic lyre refuses | |
| Fellowship of moping muses: | |
| Touched by a single note of pain, | |
| His simple chords would crack atwain. | |
| He to heaven is strongly sworn | 95 |
| To sound the hymns of utmost joy | |
| And things of joyance born; | |
| Pledged to a large, exulting song, | |
| To which no sombre tones belong, | |
| That, riding high above man’s narrow state, | 100 |
| Perfect and full, and beyond sweetness sweet, | |
| Teaches the maiden stars their heavenly gait, | |
| And those soft flashings of their silver feet.” | |
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