The Poets
O ye dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and red
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamour of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.





Related poetry:
- The Poets Of The Tomb The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead, ‘Tis time the people passed a law […]...
- Old Poets (For Robert Cortez Holliday) If I should live in a forest And sleep underneath a tree, No grove of impudent […]...
- The Poets light but Lamps The Poets light but Lamps Themselves go out The Wicks they stimulate If vital Light Inhere as do the Suns […]...
- The Martyr Poets did not tell The Martyr Poets did not tell But wrought their Pang in syllable That when their mortal name be numb Their […]...
- Lately our poets Lately our poets loiter’d in green lanes, Content to catch the ballads of the plains; I fancied I had strength […]...
- Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; […]...
- Besides the Autumn poets sing Besides the Autumn poets sing A few prosaic days A little this side of the snow And that side of […]...
- To Certain Poets Now is the rhymer’s honest trade A thing for scornful laughter made. The merchant’s sneer, the clerk’s disdain, These are […]...
- The Song Of The Pacifist What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead? Think ye our glory and […]...
- Croquis The beach was crowded. Pausing now and then, He groped and fiddled doggedly along, His worn face glaring on the […]...
- Virginity My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone; While I, least worthy to survive, persist in […]...
- The Line-Gang Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for […]...
- Lover's Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh Things throng and laugh loud in the sky; the sands and dust dance And whirl like children. Man’s mind is […]...
- In Memoriam: Four Poets 1 Searock his tower above the sea, Searock he built, not ivory. Searock as well his haunted art Who gave […]...
- London Poets (In Memoriam.) They trod the streets and squares where now I tread, With weary hearts, a little while ago; When, […]...
- Two Sonnets I SAINTS have adored the lofty soul of you. Poets have whitened at your high renown. We stand among the […]...
- In the Mile End Road How like her! But ’tis she herself, Comes up the crowded street, How little did I think, the morn, My […]...
- Such, Such Is Death Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat: Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean, A merciful putting away […]...
- Straw in the Street Straw in the street where I pass to-day Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet. ‘Tis for a failing […]...
- The Apartment House Severe against the pleasant arc of sky The great stone box is cruelly displayed. The street becomes more dreary from […]...
- Cities Can we believe by an effort Comfort our hearts: It is not waste all this, Not placed here in disgust, […]...
- Fata Morgana O sweet illusions of song That tempt me everywhere, In the lonely fields, and the throng Of the crowded thoroughfare! […]...
- Awakening THE LIGHTS shone down the street In the long blue close of day: A boy’s heart beat sweet, sweet, As […]...
- Madrigal (To Miss May Forshall.) HE shouts amain, he shouts again, (Her brother, fierce, as bluff King Hal), “I tell you […]...
- ANOTHER Go! obedient to my call, Turn to profit thy young days, Wiser make betimes thy breast In Fate’s balance as […]...
- Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a […]...
- Ah, Necromancy Sweet! Ah, Necromancy Sweet! Ah, Wizard erudite! Teach me the skill, That I instil the pain Surgeons assuage in vain, Nor […]...
- Poets Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom […]...
- May and the Poets There is May in books forever; May will part from Spenser never; May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior, May’s in […]...
- The March Of The Dead The cruel war was over oh, the triumph was so sweet! We watched the troops returning, through our tears; There […]...
- To the Etruscan Poets Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young Took with your mother’s milk the mother tongue, In which pure matrix, joining […]...
- Lines On Reading Too Many Poets Roses, rooted warm in earth, Bud in rhyme, another age; Lilies know a ghostly birth Strewn along a patterned page; […]...
- Finis Now it’s over, and now it’s done; Why does everything look the same? Just as bright, the unheeding sun, Can’t […]...
- My Favoured Fare Some poets sing of scenery; Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet. A fig for love and greenery, Be mine […]...
- To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another’s said or sung, ‘Twere politic to do […]...
- In a Disused Graveyard The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But […]...
- Someone's Mother Someone’s Mother trails the street Wrapt in rotted rags; Broken slippers on her feet Drearily she drags; Drifting in the […]...
- 'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I, […]...
- The Heroes BY many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led: But as I went through […]...
- Too scanty 'twas to die for you Too scanty ’twas to die for you, The merest Greek could that. The living, Sweet, is costlier I offer even […]...