THAT I should live and look with open eyes
I count as half my claim to Paradise.
I have not crept beneath cathedral arches,
But bathed in streams beneath the silver larches;
And have not grovelled to the Sunday priest,
But found an unconfined and daily feast;
Was called ungodly, and to those who blamed
Laughed back defiance and was not ashamed.
Some hold their duty to be mournful; why?
I cannot love your weeping poets; I
Am sad in winter, but in summer gay,
And vary with each variable day.
And though the pious cavilled at my mirth,
At least I rendered thanks for God's fair earth,
Grateful that I, among the murmuring rest,
Was not an unappreciative guest.
TO A POET
WHOSE VERSES I HAD READ
I WOULD not venture to dispraise or praise.
Too well I know the indifference which bounds
A poet in the narrow working-grounds
Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.
He must work out alone his path to glory;
A thousand breaths are fanning him along;
A thousand tears end in one little song,
A thousand conflicts in one little story;
A thousand notes swell to a single chord.
He cannot tell where his direction tends;
He strives unguided towards indefinite ends;
He is an ignorant though absolute lord.