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Poems of Sidney Lanier/Street Cries/Life and Song

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This is the fifth poem of Lanier’s collection Street Cries. Lanier composed this poem in 1868.

117348Poems of Sidney Lanier/Street Cries — City Cries: V. Life and SongSidney Lanier

V.
LIFE AND SONG.

"If life were caught by a clarionet,And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,And utter its heart in every deed,
"Then would this breathing clarionetType what the poet fain would be;For none o' the singers ever yetHas wholly lived his minstrelsy,
"Or clearly sung his true, true thought,Or utterly bodied forth his life,Or out of life and song has wroughtThe perfect one of man and wife;
"Or lived and sung, that Life and SongMight each express the other's all,Careless if life or art were longSince both were one, to stand or fall:
"So that the wonder struck the crowd,Who shouted it about the land:His song was only living aloud,His work, a singing with his hand!"
1868