A Poet’s Fancies
II
To Any Poet |
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Thou who singest through the earth
All the earth’s wild creatures fly thee;
Everywhere thou marrest mirth,—
Dumbly they defy thee;
There is something they deny thee.
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Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.
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Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.
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Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness,
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.
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Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store
Will be hidden on thy breast.
Things thou longest for
Will not fear or shun thee more.
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Thou shalt intimately lie
In the roots of flowers that thrust
Upwards from thee to the sky,
With no more distrust
When they blossom from thy dust.
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Silent labours of the rain
Shall be near thee, reconciled;
Little lives of leaves and grain,
All things shy and wild,
Tell thee secrets, quiet child.
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Earth, set free from thy fair fancies
And the art thou shalt resign,
Will bring forth her rue and pansies
Unto more divine
Thoughts than any thoughts of thine.
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Nought will fear thee, humbled creature.
There will lie thy mortal burden
Pressed unto the heart of Nature,
Songless in a garden,
With a long embrace of pardon.
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Then the truth all creatures tell,
And His will Whom thou entreatest
Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell
Silence, the completest
Of thy poems, last and sweetest.
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