 | Claribel and Other Poems |  |
244
POETS
1
Poets!—We are too many. But not one—Not one of the whole pack deserves the name.
This with his fool-bells plays a jingling game;
That mildly mouths a most mellifluous moan;
A third can fashion heroes without bone;
A fourth flings words like firebrands, without aim;
A fifth—perhaps a sixth—How many grand
Pretentious versifiers, rhymesters, ‘bards’!
But none whose venturous eyes dare look towards
The world's great future; never one whose brand
May sear the actual wrong; not one to stand
Upon that height the Unprophetic guards.
True Poet, with the soul and sword of flame,
Come forth, and for our soul-less words atone!
245
2
True poet!—Back, thou Dreamer! Lay thy dreamsIn ladies' laps. And silly girls delight
With thy inane apostrophes to Night,
Moonshine, and Wave, and Cloud! Thy fancy teems;
Not genius. Else some high heroic themes
Should from thy brain proceed, as Wisdom's Might
From head of Zeus. For now great Wrong and Right
Affront each other, and War's trumpet screams,
Giddying the earth with dissonance. O where
Is He voiced god-like, unto those who dare
To give more daring with the earnest shout
Of a true battle-hymn? We fight without
The music which should cheer us in our fight,—
While ‘poets’ learn to pipe like whiffling streams.
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