Fragments on the Poet and the Poetic Gift

There are beggars in Iran and Araby,SAID was hungrier than all;Hafiz said he was a flyThat came to every festival.He came a pilgrim to the MosqueOn trail of camel and caravan,Knew every temple and kioskOut from Mecca to Ispahan;Northward he went to the snowy hills,At court he sat in the grave Divan.His music was the south-wind's sigh,His lamp, the maiden's downcast eye,And ever the spell of beauty cameAnd turned the drowsy world to flame.By lake and stream and gleaming hallAnd modest copse and the forest tall,Where'er he went, the magic guideKept its place by the poet's side.Said melted the days like cups of pearl,Served high and low, the lord and the churl,Loved harebells nodding on a rock,A cabin hung with curling smoke,Ring of axe or hum of wheelOr gleam which use can paint on steel,And huts and tents; nor loved he lessStately lords in palaces,Princely women hard to please,Fenced by form and ceremony,Decked by courtly rites and dressAnd etiquette of gentilesse.But when the mate of the snow and wind,He left each civil scale behind:Him wood-gods fed with honey wildAnd of his memory beguiled.He loved to watch and wakeWhen the wing of the south-wind whipt the lakeAnd the glassy surface in ripples brakeAnd fled in pretty frowns awayLike the flitting boreal lights,Rippling roses in northern nights,Or like the thrill of Aeolian stringsIn which the sudden wind-god rings.In caves and hollow trees he creptAnd near the wolf and panther slept.He came to the green ocean's brimAnd saw the wheeling sea-birds skim,Summer and winter, o'er the wave,Like creatures of a skiey mould,Impassible to heat or cold.He stood before the tumbling mainWith joy too tense for sober brain;He shared the life of the element,The tie of blood and home was rent:As if in him the welkin walked,The winds took flesh, the mountains talked,And he the bard, a crystal soulSphered and concentric with the whole.

The Dervish whined to Said,"Thou didst not tarry while I prayed.Beware the fire that Eblis burned,"But Saadi coldly thus returned,"Once with manlike love and fearI gave thee for an hour my ear,I kept the sun and stars at bay,And love, for words thy tongue could say.I cannot sell my heaven againFor all that rattles in thy brain."

Said Saadi, "When I stood beforeHassan the camel-driver's door,I scorned the fame of Timour brave;Timour, to Hassan, was a slave.In every glance of Hassan's eyeI read great years of victory,And I, who cower mean and smallIn the frequent intervalWhen wisdom not with me resides,Worship Toil's wisdom that abides.I shunned his eyes, that faithful man's,I shunned the toiling Hassan's glance."

The civil world will much forgiveTo bards who from its maxims live,But if, grown bold, the poet dareBend his practice to his prayerAnd following his mighty heartShame the times and live apart,--Vae solis! I found this,That of goods I could not missIf I fell within the line,Once a member, all was mine,Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains,Fortune's delectable mountains;But if I would walk alone,Was neither cloak nor crumb my own.And thus the high Muse treated me,Directly never greeted me,But when she spread her dearest spells,Feigned to speak to some one else.I was free to overhear,Or I might at will forbear;Yet mark me well, that idle wordThus at random overheardWas the symphony of spheres,And proverb of a thousand years,The light wherewith all planets shone,The livery all events put on,It fell in rain, it grew in grain,It put on flesh in friendly form,Frowned in my foe and growled in storm,It spoke in Tullius Cicero,In Milton and in Angelo:I travelled and found it at Rome;Eastward it filled all HeathendomAnd it lay on my hearth when I came home.

Mask thy wisdom with delight,Toy with the bow, yet hit the white,As Jelaleddin old and gray;He seemed to bask, to dream and playWithout remoter hope or fearThan still to entertain his earAnd pass the burning summer-timeIn the palm-grove with a rhyme;Heedless that each cunning wordTribes and ages overheard:Those idle catches told the lawsHolding Nature to her cause.

God only knew how Saadi dined;Roses he ate, and drank the wind;He freelier breathed beside the pine,In cities he was low and mean;The mountain waters washed him cleanAnd by the sea-waves he was strong;He heard their medicinal song,Asked no physician but the wave,No palace but his sea-beat cave.

Saadi held the Muse in awe,She was his mistress and his law;A twelvemonth he could silence hold,Nor ran to speak till she him told;He felt the flame, the fanning wings,Nor offered words till they were things,Glad when the solid mountain swimsIn music and uplifting hymns.

Charmed from fagot and from steel,Harvests grew upon his tongue,Past and future must revealAll their heart when Saadi sung;Sun and moon must fall amainLike sower's seeds into his brain,There quickened to be born again.

The free winds told him what they knew,Discoursed of fortune as they blew;Omens and signs that filled the airTo him authentic witness bare;The birds brought auguries on their wings,And carolled undeceiving thingsHim to beckon, him to warn;Well might then the poet scornTo learn of scribe or courierThings writ in vaster character;And on his mind at dawn of daySoft shadows of the evening lay.

Pale genius roves alone,No scout can track his way,None credits him till he have shownHis diamonds to the day.

Not his the feaster's wine,Nor land, nor gold, nor power,By want and pain God screeneth himTill his elected hour.

Go, speed the stars of ThoughtOn to their shining goals:--The sower scatters broad his seed,The wheat thou strew'st be souls.

I grieve that better souls than mineDocile read my measured line:High destined youths and holy maidsHallow these my orchard shades;Environ me and me baptizeWith light that streams from gracious eyes.I dare not be beloved and known,I ungrateful, I alone.

Ever find me dim regards,Love of ladies, love of bards,Marked forbearance, compliments,Tokens of benevolence.What then, can I love myself?Fame is profitless as pelf,A good in Nature not allowedThey love me, as I love a cloudSailing falsely in the sphere,Hated mist if it come near.

For thought, and not praise;Thought is the wagesFor which I sell days,Will gladly sell agesAnd willing grow oldDeaf, and dumb, and blind, and cold,Melting matter into dreams,Panoramas which I sawAnd whatever glows or seemsInto substance, into Law.

For Fancy's giftCan mountains lift;The Muse can knitWhat is past, what is done,With the web that's just begun;Making free with time and size,Dwindles here, there magnifies,Swells a rain-drop to a tun;So to repeatNo word or featCrowds in a day the sum of ages,And blushing Love outwits the sages.

Try the might the Muse affordsAnd the balm of thoughtful words;Bring music to the desolate;Hang roses on the stony fate.

But over all his crowning grace,Wherefor thanks God his daily praise,Is the purging of his eyeTo see the people of the sky:From blue mount and headland dimFriendly hands stretch forth to him,Him they beckon, him adviseOf heavenlier prosperitiesAnd a more excelling graceAnd a truer bosom-glowThan the wine-fed feasters know.They turn his heart from lovely maids,And make the darlings of the earthSwainish, coarse and nothing worth:Teach him gladly to postponePleasures to another stageBeyond the scope of human age,Freely as task at eve undoneWaits unblamed to-morrow's sun.

By thoughts I leadBards to say what nations need;What imports, what irks and what behooves,Framed afar as Fates and Loves.

And as the light divides the darkThrough with living swords,So shall thou pierce the distant ageWith adamantine words.

I framed his tongue to music,I armed his hand with skill,I moulded his face to beautyAnd his heart the throne of Will.

For every GodObeys the hymn, obeys the ode.

For art, for music over-thrilled,The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled.

Hold of the Maker, not the Made;Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad.

That book is goodWhich puts me in a working mood.Unless to Thought is added Will,Apollo is an imbecile.What parts, what gems, what colors shine,--Ah, but I miss the grand design.

Like vaulters in a circus roundWho leap from horse to horse, but never touch the ground.

For Genius made his cabin wide,And Love led Gods therein to bide.

The atom displaces all atoms beside,And Genius unspheres all souls that abide.

To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stemThe vice of Japhet by the thought of Shem.

He could condense cerulean etherInto the very best sole-leather.

Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread,In mercy, on one little head.

I have no brothers and no peers,And the dearest interferes:When I would spend a lonely day,Sun and moon are in my way.

The brook sings on, but sings in vainWanting the echo in my brain.

He planted where the deluge ploughed.His hired hands were wind and cloud;His eyes detect the Gods concealedIn the hummock of the field.

For what need I of book or priest,Or sibyl from the mummied East,When every star is Bethlehem star?I count as many as there areCinquefoils or violets in the grass,So many saints and saviors,So many high behaviorsSalute the bard who is aliveAnd only sees what he doth give.

Coin the day-dawn into linesIn which its proper splendor shines;Coin the moonlight into verseWhich all its marvel shall rehearse,Chasing with words fast-flowing things; nor tryTo plant thy shrivelled pedantryOn the shoulders of the sky.

Ah, not to me those dreams belong!A better voice peals through my song.

The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded,A bolder foot is still rewarded.

His instant thought a poet spoke,And filled the age his fame;An inch of ground the lightning strookBut lit the sky with flame.

If bright the sun, he tarries,All day his song is heard;And when he goes he carriesNo more baggage than a bird.

The Asmodean feat is mine,To spin my sand-heap into twine.

Slighted Minerva's learnèd tongue,But leaped with joy when on the windThe shell of Clio rung.