Charles Wyllys Elliott.
TO WALT WHITMAN.
O Titan soul, ascend your starry steep
On golden stair to gods and storied men!
Ascend! nor care where thy traducers creep.
For what may well be said of prophets when
A world that's wicked comes to call them good?
Ascend and sing! As kings of thought who stood
On stormy heights and held far lights to men,
Stand thou and shout above the tumbled roar,
Lest brave ships drive and break against the shore.
What though thy sounding song be roughly set?
Parnassus' self is rough! Give thou the thought,
The golden ore, the gems that few forget;
In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought....
Stand thou alone and fixed as destiny;
An imaged god that lifts above all hate,
Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate.
Stand thou as stands that lightning-riven tree
That lords the cloven clouds of gray Yosemite.
Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home.
Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to thee,
Like incense curling some cathedral dome
From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be,
O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone.
But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres,
Spin on alone through all the soundless years;
Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone;
Alone he turns to front the dark Unknown.
Then range thine upper world, nor stoop to wars.
Walk thou the heights as walked the old Greeks when
They talked to austere gods, nor turned to men.
Teach thou the order of the singing stars.
Behold, in mad disorder these are set,
And yet they sing in ceaseless harmonies.
They spill as jewels spilt through space. They fret
The souls of men who measure melodies
As they would measure slimy deeps of seas.
Take comfort, O uncommon soul. Yet pray
Lest ye grow proud in such exalted worth.
Let no man reckon he excels. I say
The laws of compensation compass earth,
And no man gains without some equal loss:
Each ladder round of fame becomes a rod,
And he who lives must die upon a cross.
The stars are far, but flowers bless the sod,
And he who has the least of man has most of God.
Joaquin Miller.