 | Songs of Consolation |  |
9
MUSA SPRETA
1.
I HEAR the unwise assever that poetry is dead,
That song is out of season and singers out of date
And both alike unportioned in this our new estate,
Where nothing worth is reckoned, except it baketh bread,
That, in our age rant-ridden, our day delusion-fed,
Song is a flower of dreamland, that lingers overlate,
A rose, of love that breatheth unto a world of hate,
A bird, that pipes its heart out to ears grown deaf for dread.
That song is out of season and singers out of date
And both alike unportioned in this our new estate,
Where nothing worth is reckoned, except it baketh bread,
That, in our age rant-ridden, our day delusion-fed,
Song is a flower of dreamland, that lingers overlate,
A rose, of love that breatheth unto a world of hate,
A bird, that pipes its heart out to ears grown deaf for dread.
They say that it was welcome, whilst yet the world was new
And men from rhymes, like children, must learn the good and true;
But, now that old our earth is and we its dwellers old,
Plain prose and sober reason suffice to us for guide,
Nor from Life's battle leisure for poetry aside
Have we to turn and hearken its tinkling bells of gold.
And men from rhymes, like children, must learn the good and true;
But, now that old our earth is and we its dwellers old,
Plain prose and sober reason suffice to us for guide,
Nor from Life's battle leisure for poetry aside
Have we to turn and hearken its tinkling bells of gold.
2.
I hear and smile for pity and scorn of what they say:
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
That sweeten and as birdsongs that drive ill thought away.
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
10
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
Without the poet's magic, the blights of sordid care
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
| Songs of Consolation | |