The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder :: :: University of Virginia Library

1. PART I

ART AND LIFE

Said the Poet unto the Seer:
How shall I learn to tell
What I know of Heaven and Hell?
I speak, but to ashes turn
The passions that in me burn.
I shout to the skies, but I hear
No answer from man or God.

Shall I cast my lyre to the sod,
Rest, and give over the strife,
And sink in a voiceless life?
Said the Seer to the Poet: Arise
And give to the seas and the skies
The message that in thee burns.
Thrice speak, tho' the blue sky turns
Deaf ears, and the ocean spurns
Thy call. Tho' men despise
The word that from out thy heart
Flameth; do thou thy part.
Thrice speak it, aloud, I say,
Then go, released, on thy way;
Live thou deeply and wise;
Suffer as never before;
Know joy, till it cuts to the quick;
Eat the apple, Life, to the core.
Be thou curst
By them thou hast blest, by the sick
Whom thou in thy weakness nursed.
With thy strength the faint endue;
Be praised when 't were better to blame;
In the home of thy spirit be true,
Tho' the voice of the street cry shame.
Be silent till all is done,
Then return, in the light of the sun,
And once more sing.
O, then fling
Into music thy soul! Tell the seas
Again all thy thought; O, be strong
Thy voice as the voice of the waves, as the voice of the trees!
Tell the blast,
That shall shudder as onward it flies

With thy word, with thy song;
Tell the skies,
And the world, that shall listen at last!

THE POET AND HIS MASTER

One day the poet's harp lay on the ground,
Tho' from it rose a strange and trembling sound
What time the wind swept over with a moan,
Or, now and then, a faint and tinkling tone
When a dead leaf fell shuddering from a tree
And shook the silent wires all tremulously;
And near it, dumb with sorrow, and alone
The poet sat. His heart was like a stone.

Then one drew near him who was robed in white:
It was the poet's master; he had given
To him that harp, once in a happy night
When every silver star that shone in heaven
Made music ne'er before was heard by mortal wight.
And thus the master spoke:—

“Why is thy voice
Silent, O poet? Why upon the grass
Lies thy still harp? The fitful breezes pass
And stir the wires, but the skilled player's hand
Moves not upon them. Poet, wake! Rejoice!
Sing and arouse the melancholy land!”

“Master, forbear. I may not sing to-day;
My nearest friend, the brother of my heart,
This day is stricken with sorrow; he must part
From her who loves him. Can I sing, and play
Upon the joyous harp, and mock his woe?”

“Alas, and hast thou then so soon forgot
The bond that with thy gift of song did go—
Severe as fate, fixt and unchangeable?
Even tho' his heart be sounding its own knell,
Dost thou not know this is the poet's lot:
'Mid sounds of war, in halcyon times of peace,
To strike the ringing wire and not to cease;
In hours of general happiness to swell
The common joy; and when the people cry
With piteous voice loud to the pitiless sky,
'T is his to frame the universal prayer
And breathe the balm of song upon the accursèd air?”

“But 't is not, O my master! that I borrow
The robe of grief to deck my brother's sorrow—
Mine eyes have seen beyond the veil of youth;
I know what Life is, have caught sight of Truth;
My heart is dead within me; a thick pall
Darkens the midday sun.”

“And dost thou call
This sorrow? Call this knowledge? O thou blind
And ignorant! Know, then, thou yet shalt find,
Ere thy full days are numbered 'neath the sun,
Thou, in thy shallow youth, hadst but begun
To guess what knowledge is, what grief may be,
And all the infinite sum of human misery;
Shalt find that for each drop of perfect good
Thou payest, at last, a threefold price in blood;
What is most noble in thee,—every thought
Highest and best,—crusht, spat upon, and brought
To an open shame; thy natural ignorance
Counted thy crime; the world all ruled by chance,
Save that the good most suffer; but above

These ills another, cruel, monstrous, worse
Than all before—thy pure and passionate love
Shall bring the old, immitigable curse.”

“And thou, who tell'st me this, dost bid me sing?”

“I bid thee sing, even tho' I have not told
All the deep flood of anguish shall be rolled
Across thy breast. Nor, Poet, shalt thou bring
From out those depths thy grief! Tell to the wind
Thy private woes, but not to human ear,
Save in the shape of comfort for thy kind.
But never hush thy song, dare not to cease
While life is thine. Haply, 'mid those who hear,
Thy music to one soul shall murmur peace,
Tho' for thyself it hath no power to cheer.

“Then shall thy still unbroken spirit grow
Strong in its silent suffering and more wise;
And,—as the drenched and thunder-shaken skies
Pass into golden sunset,—thou shalt know
An end of calm, when evening breezes blow;
And, looking on thy life with vision fine,
Shalt see the shadow of a hand divine.”

MORS TRIUMPHALIS

I

In the hall of the king the loud mocking of many at one;
While lo! with his hand on his harp the old bard is undone!
One false note, then he stammers, he sobs like a child, he is failing,
And the song that so bravely began ends in discord and wailing.

II

Can it be it is they who make merry, 't is they taunting him?
Shall the sun, then, be scorned by the planets, the tree by the limb!
These bardlings, these mimics, these echoes, these shadows at play,
While he only is real;—they shine but as motes in his day!

III

All that in them is best is from him; all they know he has taught;
But one secret he never could teach, and they never have caught—
The soul of his songs, that goes sighing like wind through the reeds,
And thrills men, and moves them to terror, to prayer, and to deeds.

IV

Has the old poet failed, then—the singer forgotten his art?
Why, 't was he who once startled the world with a cry from his heart;
And he held it entranced in a life-song, all music, all love;
If now it grow faint and grow still, they have called him above.

V

Ah, never again shall we hear such fierce music and sweet—
Surely never from you, ye who mock, for his footstool unmeet;

E'en his song left unsung had more power than the note ye prolong,
And one sweep of his harp-strings outpassioned the hight of your song.

VI

But a sound like the voice of the pine, like the roar of the sea
Arises. He breathes now; he sings; O, again he is free.
He has flung from his flesh, from his spirit, their shackles accurst,
And he pours all his heart, all his life, in one passionate burst.

VII

And now as he chants those who listen turn pale, are afraid;
For he sings of a God that made all, and is all that was made;
Who is maker of love, and of hate, and of peace, and of strife;
Smiles a heaven into being; frowns a hell, that yet thrills with His life.

VIII

And he sings of the time that shall be when the earth is grown old;
Of the day when the sun shall be withered, and shrunken, and cold;
When the stars, and the moon, and the sun,—all their glory o'erpast,—
Like apples that shrivel and rot, shall drop into the Vast.

IX

And onward and out soars his song on its journey sublime,
'Mid systems that vanish or live in the lilt of his rhyme;
And through making and marring of races, and worlds, still he sings
One theme, that o'er all and through all his wild music outrings—

X

This one theme: that whate'er be the fate that has hurt us or joyed;
Whatever the face that is turned to us out of the void;
Be it cursing or blessing; or night, or the light of the sun;
Be it ill, be it good; be it life, be it death, it is One;—

XI

One thought, and one law, and one awful and infinite power;
In atom, and world; in the bursting of fruit and of flower;
The laughter of children, and roar of the lion untamed;
And the stars in their courses—one name that can never be named.

XII

But sudden a silence has fallen, the music has fled;
Tho' he leans with his hand on his harp, now indeed he is dead;
But the swan-song he sang shall for ever and ever abide
In the heart of the world, with the winds and the murmuring tide.

THE MASTER-POETS

He the great World-Musician at whose stroke
The stars of morning into music broke;
He from whose Being Infinite are caught
All harmonies of light, and sound, and thought—
Once in each age, to keep the world in tune,
He strikes a note sublime. Nor late, nor soon,
A godlike soul,—music and passion's birth,—
Vibrates across the discord of the earth
And sets the world aright.
O, these are they
Who on men's hearts with mightiest power can play—
The master-poets of humanity,
From heaven sent down to lift men to the sky.