Poems (Greenwood)/The poet of to-day

by Grace Greenwood

THE POET OF TO-DAY.

What siren joy from thy high trust hath won thee,
 O Poet of to-day?—thou still unheard,
Though struggling nations cast their eyes upon thee,
 And the roused world is waiting for thy word!

Why lingerest thou amid the summer places,
 The gardens of romance, the haunt of dreams,
'Mid verdurous shadows, lit by fairy faces,
 And fitful playing of soft, golden gleams?

There have thy fiery thoughts and hopes betaken
 To still delights, and loveliness, and rest,
Thy life to quiet gliding, lest it waken
 The languid lilies sleeping on its breast.

The rudest wind which comes where thou art lying,
 Listening the chiming waters as they flow,
May scarcely set the mournful pines a-sighing,
 Or shake down rose-leaves on thy dreaming brow.

Arouse! look up, to where above thee tower
 Regions of being grander, freer, higher,
Where God reveals his presence and his power,
 E'en as of old, in thunders and in fire.

Then stray no longer in the valleys vernal;
 Ascend where darkness and great lights belong,
Sunshine and tempest; scale the heights eternal,
 Go forth and tread the mountain-paths of song!

From those far summits shall thy thought's clear voicing
 Fall like the sweep of torrents on the world;
Thy lays speed forth, exultant and rejoicing,
 Their eagle pinions on the winds unfurled.

Ah, when the soul of ancient song was blending
 With the rapt bard's in his immortal strains,
'T was like the wine drunk on Olympus, sending
 Divine intoxication through the veins.

It brought strange, charmed words, and magic singing,
 And forms of beauty burning on the sight,—
Young loves their flight through airs ambrosial winging,
 And dark-browed heroes arming for the fight,—

The trumpet's "golden cry," the shield's quick flashing,
 The dance of banners and the rush of war,—
Death-showers of arrows and the spear's sharp clashing,—
 The homeward rolling of the victor's car!

But ah! in all that song's heroic story,
 Had sad Humanity one briefest part?
Sounds through the clang of words, the storm, the glory,
 One sharp, strong cry from out her bleeding heart?

But unto thee the soul of song is given,
 O Poet of to-day, a grander dower,—
Comes from a higher than the Olympian heaven,
 In holier beauty and in larger power.

To thee Humanity, her woes revealing,
 Would all her griefs and ancient wrongs rehearse;
Would make thy song the voice of her appealing,
 And sob her mighty sorrows through thy verse.

While in her season of great darkness sharing,
 Hail thou the coming of each promise-star
Which climbs the midnight of her long despairing,
 And watch for morning o'er the hills afar.

Wherever Truth her holy warfare wages,
 Or Freedom pines, there let thy voice be heard;
Sound like a prophet-warning down the ages
 The human utterance of God's living word.

But bring not thou the battle's stormy chorus,
 The tramp of armies, and the roar of fight,
Not war's hot smoke to taint the sweet morn o'er us,
 Nor blaze of pillage, reddening up the night.

O, let thy lays prolong that angel-singing,
 Girdling with music the Redeemer's star,
And breathe God's peace, to earth "glad tidings" bringing
 From the near heavens, of old so dim and far!