“But how they sing in unison
Earth’s ear hath never heard,
So only in thine heart rings on
The song that has no word.”
AN ANSWER.
Take again thy shallow hearted reason
Groping dimly through the night in which thou art!
Very harmless fall the arrows of thy treason
On the worship and the wonder in my heart.
I have drunk the everlasting fountains
Flowing downward from the infinite to me,
Seen the wonder of the moonrise in the mountains
And the glory of the sunset on the sea.
THE POET.
He will come again as oft of old among you,
With his burden to fulfil;—
Did ye hearken ever to the songs they sung you
Till the song was still?
He will bear again the scorn, the idle wonder,
And heart-hunger and love’s need;
You will drown the sound of music in your thunder,
And he will not heed.
Singing unperplexed above the mocking laughter
Till his day be overpast;
Till the music dies, and silence follows after
And ye turn at last,—
Then when all the echoes breathe it and ye know it,
Ye will seek him to revere;
Cry aloud, and call him, master, lover, poet!
And he will not hear.