Poety

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1556, 24 June 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poety

A PLEA. 0 ye in all the world who love true song, He gentle to the singeis who uplift In innocent delight a cradle gift, — So often found to work them fatal wrong. Judge them not wholly as the tuneless throng, But if within their instrument a rift Be found to mar not music, give it shrift, — Song justifies itself, if sweet and strong. Song justifies itself, but they who sing, linining ethereal music from a height Lonely and pure, grow strong upon the wing, And more and more enamoured of the light, But faint for any earthly journej ing, And fain to faeek n lowly bed at night. And oh ! be tenderest to the seers that lack The wild-bird's song, the wild bird's wing to rise, And bathe their souls in light of summer skies — Poets who gather truth with bended back, And give forth speech of it as on the rack ; Speech urgent as the blood of grapes that dyes His garments who must tiead it ont with sighs, And ceaseless feet that follow no fair track. Think of the manful work of those who bruise ThS grape in setting fiee its life di\ine, And if some favour they should thereby lose, Count it no marvel that a soul should pine, Which often for its sustenance must use But dregs of that it pours theo fourth as wine. Words that arc idle with the songless crown Are as tho poet's ripest deed, the fruit And flower of all his woiking da^s, tho suit He weaves about his soul, which, if endowed Too liclily, and so called to ends moio proud, Builds with his bieath a house of high lcpute, Wheiein ho chants the office foi the mute, Appealing ones, who at his feet are bowed. Yet let the Maker mould them as lie will, A spirit that He knows not to contiol, Works in His words beyond His utmost skill, Making them yield His measure, and the whole Form of His buing, be it good or ill, — l ( 'or no man's work is gi eater than his soul.