Poems (Tree)/Shall We Be Christened Poets, Children of God
SHALL we be christened poets, children of God,For blowing sighs into the listeners' ears,For tugging at the moaning bells of death,And coming as the autumn grave-diggerTo close the eyes of flowers, and shut the fingersOf wind upon the rushes,Of music upon silence?Shall we be given wreathes of bay and laurelFor forcing tragedy into a rhymeAs a gaunt beggar in a spangled vest?The poet ever wanders after Death,The flunkey on a funeral chariotPouring the wine at feasts of burial;And all the roses that he plucks from summerAre carried to the crypts to deck a corpse. . . .How shall the world learn how to laugh againWhen all its songs have only learnt to weep?
1919