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TO THE POET

Let not thy listening spirit be abashed
By the majestic ranks of ancient bards
Or all the clarion singers of thy day:
For in thy true and individual song
Thou art a voice of nature; as the wind,
And cries of moving waters, and all shows
And speaking symbols of the universe
Are but the glorious sound and utterance
Of the mysterious power that spake the Word—
The immense first word that filled with splendid light
And vibrant potency the house of life;
Whose candles are a million, million stars,
Whose windows look on gulfs unthinkable
That bound our world. Think not on thine own self,
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But on the enormous currents silently
That flood the unseen channels of still force,
Or with the sound of earthquake and the shout
Of circling storms complete an unknown doom.
Thine is the fate and function mystical,
In forms of lyric and eternal art,
Clearly to utter and re-syllable
The primal Word:—So is thy verse of kin
To the sea-shell, the lily, and the leaf.
It hath a natural right and majesty,
Being of the infinite, all-evolving power
True jet and symbol; kin to the morning star
That in the sky of dawn sings with its mates.
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