 | Musa Verticordia |  |
15
SINGERS OF THE CENTURY
Enlarge your measure, minstrels; War and Trade,
These will endure as long as Lust endures;
For like voracious dragons in a drop
Of stagnant water, men devour their kind;
But not by these true Manhood can be made,
The urgent need that coveting obscures;
Finger, O minstrels, this forgotten stop,—
How in the mindless to create a mind:
These will endure as long as Lust endures;
For like voracious dragons in a drop
Of stagnant water, men devour their kind;
But not by these true Manhood can be made,
The urgent need that coveting obscures;
Finger, O minstrels, this forgotten stop,—
How in the mindless to create a mind:
How to be rid of hatred of stern thought,—
The discipline of ordered intellect,
Wherein alone the love of Mankind dwells
(And not in pity's fluctuating mood)
With truth diviner and less vainly sought
Than ancient Church can boast, or modern Sect,
Crazed with conceit of their own heavens and hells,
Or fondly-designated ill and good:
The discipline of ordered intellect,
Wherein alone the love of Mankind dwells
(And not in pity's fluctuating mood)
16
Than ancient Church can boast, or modern Sect,
Crazed with conceit of their own heavens and hells,
Or fondly-designated ill and good:
To make each reasonable spirit free
To work out its salvation, undeterred
By old accumulated custom's dross
Or by authority's self-loving law;
Depriving pompous preachers of their fee
Of ignorant applause, with which the herd
Reward the leaders that most deftly toss
The sugared falsehood to the public maw.
To work out its salvation, undeterred
By old accumulated custom's dross
Or by authority's self-loving law;
Depriving pompous preachers of their fee
Of ignorant applause, with which the herd
Reward the leaders that most deftly toss
The sugared falsehood to the public maw.
Our insignificant earth can keep her place
Among the monstrous strewing of the stars,
Which by the rule of number must obey
The chanting mathematics of the sky;
Why then should Man the little heap disgrace,
Maiming humanity with wounds and scars,
Save that he cannot find his ordered way
Nor fix Time's orbit in Eternity?
Among the monstrous strewing of the stars,
Which by the rule of number must obey
The chanting mathematics of the sky;
17
Maiming humanity with wounds and scars,
Save that he cannot find his ordered way
Nor fix Time's orbit in Eternity?
'Tis yours, O minstrels, to be seer and sage;
If bards have not imagination, who
Can hope to win it? That divinest power,
Piercing to sacramental verity
Beneath the superficial appanage,
Out of the old things bringing forth the new,
Divining from the seed the future flower,
And from the seen setting the unseen free.
If bards have not imagination, who
Can hope to win it? That divinest power,
Piercing to sacramental verity
Beneath the superficial appanage,
Out of the old things bringing forth the new,
Divining from the seed the future flower,
And from the seen setting the unseen free.
Up, up! Bestir! Away with pretty speech
And tinkling melodies, to tickle ears
Made stupid with the drone of politics
Or commerce, or with clattering social din
Of silly tongues, like parrots each to each
Repeating and out-talking his compeers;
And cease your mild monotonies to mix
For jaded tastes; the true artistic sin.
And tinkling melodies, to tickle ears
Made stupid with the drone of politics
Or commerce, or with clattering social din
18
Repeating and out-talking his compeers;
And cease your mild monotonies to mix
For jaded tastes; the true artistic sin.
Honour your office or relinquish verse;
Better to dig potatoes than despise
Your mission to bring messages to Man
Of voices that his ears can else not hear,
That cry aloud with blessing or with curse
Along the lonely borderland that lies
Where Science, Art, Religion overspan,
And only poets venture without fear.
Better to dig potatoes than despise
Your mission to bring messages to Man
Of voices that his ears can else not hear,
That cry aloud with blessing or with curse
Along the lonely borderland that lies
Where Science, Art, Religion overspan,
And only poets venture without fear.
Haste and bring thence great garlands for our streets,
Immense festoons of flowering Thought, to bind
About our houses and our alleys dark;
Not only posies for a complement
To rich men's porcelain, or a bunch of sweets
For a girl's hair; but meadowsful, to wind
Round life itself; till life itself must mark
And be transmuted by the hue and scent.
Immense festoons of flowering Thought, to bind
About our houses and our alleys dark;
Not only posies for a complement
19
For a girl's hair; but meadowsful, to wind
Round life itself; till life itself must mark
And be transmuted by the hue and scent.
| Musa Verticordia | |