 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder
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COMPENSATION
The Angel of Life stood forth on the threshold of Birth
And converse held with a spirit about to be born;
And the Angel announced to the Soul awaiting its world:
Choose thou! for now thou must choose, and never hereafter.
And if thou to beauty shalt bow, to Beauty and Art,
And if to thy spirit all exquisite things be revealed,
If the fate of the poet be thine, if a god thou wouldst be,
If thou in thy soul wouldst joyfully seize and encompass
The glories and grandeurs of earth, the sweetness supreme,
The vision angelic, forbidden to eyes unanointed,
The melodies silent to all save the holy of spirit,
The signs and the secrets, the splendors, the exaltations,
If these thou shalt choose, if these thou wouldst know and impart,
Even so—but forget not the price of the infinite wisdom,
For the price of the passion of joy is the passion of sorrow,
And the cost of thy heaven is the burning and anguish of hell.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder
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