Passion-Flowers :: :: University of Virginia Library

Men often came to me, and prayed
I should indite a fitting verse
For fast, or festival, or in
Some stately pageant to rehearse.
(As if, than Balaam more endowed,
I of myself could bless or curse.)

Reluctantly I bade them go,
Ungladdened by my poet-mite;
My heart is not so churlish but
It loves to minister delight.

But not a word I breathe is mine
To sing in praise of man or God;
My Master calls at noon or night;
I know his whisper and his nod.

Yet all my thoughts to rhythms run,
To rhyme my wisdom and my wit;
True, I consume my life in verse;
But wouldst thou know how that is writ?

'Tis thus—through weary length of days,
I bear a thought within my breast
That greatens from my growth of soul,
And waits, and will not be expressed.

It greatens till its hour has come;
Not without pain it sees the light;
'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,
And dare not deem it perfect, quite.

These children of my soul I keep
Where scarce a mortal man may see;
Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,
Baptismal rites they claim of thee.