Poems (Van Rensselaer)/The Poet
For works with similar titles, see The Poet.
THE POET
Is the voice as an echo of voices of old,
The song but a singing of tales oft told?
Then the eyes of the singer are dim and his pulses cold:
For, as hour follows hour, in a splendor of birth
The world is refilled with things living and true;
And, fresh thing or ancient, though old as the earth,
The singer who sees it aright he maketh it new.
When it comes to him (be it or love,
Or passion, or vision of death,
The tempest-wind's breath,
The clash of the sea, the complaint of the dove,
A glint of the green where the elms bud again,
The stars in the flag, the shrill of the fife,
A rapture of strength, a whirlwind of pain—
Be it aught that means life or the ceasing of life,)
What imports is the way his heart takes it,
The web into which he makes it,
The pattern it leaves
In the garment he weaves
For his spirit.
Remember, thou singer, thou poet,
Who lovest the world, that thou never
In all of thy singing canst show it,
The world as it is:
Not even canst picture the rose—
It is never her color that shows;
Not even canst tell of a bird—
It is never his note that is heard.
What thou showest is this:
Thyself, thine own soul; and not ever
That soul as it nakedly came from thy mother.
Thy hands and no other
Must dress it in garments of spirits long dead,
Begged, stolen, or borrowed, or bought,
In rags that thy betters have shed,
Or else in a woof thou hast wrought
Upon looms of thine own with thy love and thy pain,
Thy fears and thy powers, thy fortunes of loss and of gain,
The beauty, the terror, that fall to thy part,
The ache and the infinite joy of thy heart;
And with sun and with stars newly plucked from the heaven,
With lilies and rainbows, with gems from the mine,
And jewels of spray of the sea. These are thine
If thou knowest to look and to grasp and to weave.
And, thy garment once woven
Full strong in its tissue and shiningly bright,
Whatever thou showest in song it shall leave
In the life of the listener an echo of light.
He shall cry,
"A new man, a new heart,
A soul that can play a soul's part,
A leader for us who but want to be led,
From tombs where the dead lie dead,
Toward heights where the living shall live
(It is promised) a life better worth
Thanksgiving to Life than to-day unto many can give
This hoary and vexèd yet youthful and eager old earth."
The song but a singing of tales oft told?
Then the eyes of the singer are dim and his pulses cold:
For, as hour follows hour, in a splendor of birth
The world is refilled with things living and true;
And, fresh thing or ancient, though old as the earth,
The singer who sees it aright he maketh it new.
When it comes to him (be it or love,
Or passion, or vision of death,
The tempest-wind's breath,
The clash of the sea, the complaint of the dove,
A glint of the green where the elms bud again,
The stars in the flag, the shrill of the fife,
A rapture of strength, a whirlwind of pain—
Be it aught that means life or the ceasing of life,)
What imports is the way his heart takes it,
The web into which he makes it,
The pattern it leaves
In the garment he weaves
For his spirit.
Remember, thou singer, thou poet,
Who lovest the world, that thou never
In all of thy singing canst show it,
The world as it is:
Not even canst picture the rose—
It is never her color that shows;
Not even canst tell of a bird—
It is never his note that is heard.
What thou showest is this:
Thyself, thine own soul; and not ever
That soul as it nakedly came from thy mother.
Thy hands and no other
Must dress it in garments of spirits long dead,
Begged, stolen, or borrowed, or bought,
In rags that thy betters have shed,
Or else in a woof thou hast wrought
Upon looms of thine own with thy love and thy pain,
Thy fears and thy powers, thy fortunes of loss and of gain,
The beauty, the terror, that fall to thy part,
The ache and the infinite joy of thy heart;
And with sun and with stars newly plucked from the heaven,
With lilies and rainbows, with gems from the mine,
And jewels of spray of the sea. These are thine
If thou knowest to look and to grasp and to weave.
And, thy garment once woven
Full strong in its tissue and shiningly bright,
Whatever thou showest in song it shall leave
In the life of the listener an echo of light.
He shall cry,
"A new man, a new heart,
A soul that can play a soul's part,
A leader for us who but want to be led,
From tombs where the dead lie dead,
Toward heights where the living shall live
(It is promised) a life better worth
Thanksgiving to Life than to-day unto many can give
This hoary and vexèd yet youthful and eager old earth."
Through the silence of night and the roll
Of the drums of the difficult day
Thy voice shall ring clear, and the people will hearken and say,
"Let us follow this guide who has clothed his own soul
With the brightness of morning, the strength of the noon,
The compassion of dusk, the peace of the light of the crescent moon."
Of the drums of the difficult day
Thy voice shall ring clear, and the people will hearken and say,
"Let us follow this guide who has clothed his own soul
With the brightness of morning, the strength of the noon,
The compassion of dusk, the peace of the light of the crescent moon."