Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

“It should have been of gold, they thought: but Jupiter was poor; this was the best the God could give them.” Ruskin. Preface to “The Crown of Wild Olive.”

I.

What matter for the stuff?
So but the crown,
The symbol of renown,
Be on thy head set by the Gods, enough
Is't not, of iron black, although, or copper brown
The coronal be wrought.
Although of silver scrolls and golden horns
It lack, it skilleth nought.
The highest soul, from Heaven that e'er came down
To earth, for prophet-gown
A cere-cloth had, for crown a wreath of thorns.
Though rough thy crown to see,
What matter if it be?
When all is done,
The metal's value oft the jewel mars:
What gold can give the semblance of the sun,
What silver ape the splendour of the stars?

What matter for the kind?
Whether beneath
The massive mural wreath
The temples ache, whether soft parsley bind
The brows or olive-leaves, for chaplet cool and eath,
Circle the heavy head,
Whether sweet violets crown thee or the cirque
Of iron furnace-red,
That tears the martyr's flesh with flaming teeth,
Thy front in fire ensheath,

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The glory 'tis that's reckoned, not the irk.
If gold it be or not,
The form's the thing, God wot,
The form that is the symbol of the spheres;
The pearls that sort with it are happy tears,
The sobs from song-delivered hearts that well,
The sapphires solaced griefs, the rubies fears,
To hopes transmuted by the poet's spell.

II.

What matter for the cost?
To the true soul,
So but it gain its goal,
The world and all its treasures were well lost.
It maketh no account of suffered stress or dole
Endured in honour's quest.
The glory gotten and the worship won,
If fate permit, to rest
Were sweet. If not, having drained its wish's bowl,
It taketh leave, heart-whole,
Nor sighs to have looked its last upon the sun.
Though sore have been the stress
Of winning, none the less
Worth is the prize
That through Hell's furnace one should fare, unshod.
Alcides but on flames ascends the skies;
It is the crucifixion crowns the God.

What matter how or when?
The crown's the thing.
King calleth unto king,
Above the heads of miserable men,
Who for the thunder take their speech's echoing
Athwart the ages dim,
Their looks for lightnings and their tears for rain,
Falling from Heaven's blue rim,

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Their voices for the Gods', the spheres', that ring
An instant, volleying,
And then for many a day are mute again.
Though long the waiting years
And dark with doubts and fears
The days when all upon their heads heaped scorn,
The dearer is the diadem, when torn
From the dull folk and the despiteful Fates,
As in the heavens brightlier beams the morn,
When the new sun hath stormed the tempest's gates.

III.

The poet's crown is thorns;
Its broidery keen,
Its web of wreathing sheen,
Are woven of weary nights and woeful morns,
For scrolls with strange delights, beyond men's wit, beseen,
For jewelry with joys,
Such to the meaner vision of his mates
As seem but idle toys,
The spirit-gladnesses, whereof few ween,
In this our world terrene,
But which his soul transport to Eden's gates.
His life is lived in these;
This that he hears and sees
Insensible
Makes him to earthly joys, to pleasures cold,
And causes him regard as pains of hell
Much that his fellow-men for sweet and solace hold.

His joys wealth cannot buy:
Upon the breeze
There comes, to give him ease,
Some waft of scent celestial from on high,
Some robin's lilt, that flutes upon the leafless trees,
Some stirring in the air,

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Some tone of tender colour in the cloud,
Some strain unearthly fair,
Some song of waves in other-worldly seas,
Some glimpse of far-off leas,
Some fair face shining from the senseless crowd,
Some wind-voice in the elms,
With message from the realms
Full-fraught, whereof this world of woe and wail
Is but the sense-spun, eye-deluding veil,
— Things over-subtle for our sphere of cease,
That soothe his spirit, sick of Life's long ail,
With passing breaths of balm and strange celestial peace.

IV.

None other recompense
Than this hath he.
The things, that sweet to see
Are in men's eyes, to his diviner sense
Are meaningless and vain as shadows on the lea;
Excepting only Love:
But this, whereby his fellows glorified
And raised themselves above
Whiles are, of him alone forsworn must be.
(To Him of Galilee,
Prometheus, Buddha, was not Love denied?)
Here must he walk alone;
No queen may share his throne,
No friend the way fare with him, hand in hand.
His kingship, being of an unknown land,
Of men accounted is to him for blame
And from this world, based on Time's shifting sand,
But when he is by death delivered, works for fame.

V.

Yet, poet, wear thou this
Thy crown, content.

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What though thy brows intent
Its thorn-embroidery o'er-roughly kiss?
It solveth thee from need of earthly solacement.
Since first the world grew green,
Fools only earthly happy, now as then,
Have in Life's dustheap been.
Sorrow with those who've known Heaven's ravishment
And smelt its roses' scent
Still dwells and Gods are sad and kings of men.
Yet better far a king
To be, through suffering,
Than, swine-like glad,
In ignorant slavery to grovel here;
Better the highest to have known and sad
For lack thereof to live than drowse in dullard cheer.