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To a Modern Poet.
“Songs of despair, O Poet, only songs of despair?True, we have trouble enough, fear and sorrow and care.
And this is the courage, the help, the consolation thou'rt bringing,—
All that's evil in life and man persistently singing?
Love, joy, wisdom, and goodness, are shams, by you detected;
Beauty's a poisonous growth, root, fruit, and flow'r infected,
Passing fair and sweet, a savour of death unto Death;
Life being a painted bubble, the chance of an idle breath.
If Will there be, 'tis a Cacodæmon's, half-mocking, half-loathing,
Who plays with his puppets, tortures them, touches them into nothing!
Songs such as these, O brother, how will they help us along?
We have a journey to make, would fain be cheerful and strong;
The deepest thing we know is that right does differ from wrong.
Evils there are in the world. Shall we add to them evil song?
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By your leave, that looks not to me the wisest plan on the whole.”
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