 | Songs of Consolation |  |
2.
I hear and smile for pity and scorn of what they say:
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
That sweeten and as birdsongs that drive ill thought away.
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
10
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
Without the poet's magic, the blights of sordid care
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
| Songs of Consolation | |