The Poet's Heart

Time was when I a poet's nameAmbitiously did seek;But ah! no more I crave for fame,My spirits bent and weak:Alas! to will is not to do,To strive not to attain;How many start to climb—how fewParnassus' summit gain!

To feel poetic sympathiesDoth not a poet make,But oh! 'tis hard we can't revealOur rapture or heartache;Sad to be dumb when we would fainPour out our joy or woe—The rich reward, the priceless gainThat poets only know—

Of hearing said in grateful wordsBy youth or maiden fair,—"Ah! in that verse my heart that bledIn helpless dumb despairHas found its voice at last, and poursOut in a flood its grief;My woe that grovelled now outsoarsItself, and gains relief!"

Or, in the verse the lover findsHis rapturous love portrayedSo wondrously, he cries—"What mindsThese poets have—some aidSupernal they must needs obtain,Else how could they displayThe thoughts that folded in my brain,Hopeless of utterance, lay?"

Ah! had I but the poet's heartAll else would I forego,And bear with patience every smartFate might on me bestow:No other gift so rich and rareCan mortal man obtain,E'en though 'tis linked with carking care,And with the world's disdain.

When vain is philosophic speechAnd reason pleads in vain,Even then the poet's words will reachThe heart and soothe its pain:There's no dark corner of the soulThe poet may not scan—Philosophers see part—the wholeOnly the poet can.

1885