Sympathies

THE snows that glittered on the disk of MarsHave melted, and the planet's fiery orbRolls in the crimson summer of its year;But what to me the summer or the snowOf worlds that throb with life in forms unknown,If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these.My heart is simply human; all my careFor them whose dust is fashioned like mine own;These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain,And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe;There may be others worthier of my love,But such I know not save through these I know.

There are two veils of language, hid beneathWhose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves;And not that other self which nods and smilesAnd babbles in our name; the one is Prayer,Lending its licensed freedom to the tongueThat tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven;The other, Verse, that throws its spangled webAround our naked speech and makes it bold.I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumbIn the great temple where I nightly serveHim who is throned in light, have dared to claimThe poet's franchise, though I may not hopeTo wear his garland; hear me while I tellMy story in such form as poets use,But breathed in fitful whispers, as the windSighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again.

Thou Vision, floating in the breathless airBetween me and the fairest of the stars,I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee.Look not for marvels of the scholar's penIn my rude measure; I can only showA slender-margined, unillumined page,And trust its meaning to the flattering eyeThat reads it in the gracious light of love.Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shapeAnd nestle at my side, my voice should lendWhate'er my verse may lack of tender rhythmTo make thee listen.

I have stood entrancedWhen, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys,The white enchantress with the golden hairBreathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme;Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom;Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang!The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo,Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones,And the pale minstrel's passion lived again,Tearful and trembling as a dewy roseThe wind has shaken till it fills the airWith light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charmA song can borrow when the bosom throbsThat lends it breath.

So from the poet's lipsHis verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like himFeels every cadence of its wave-like flow;He lives the passion over, while he reads,That shook him as he sang his lofty strain,And pours his life through each resounding line,As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed,Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves.