The lowly grasses and the fair-faced flowers
Watch their Creator as He passes on,
And mourn they have no hearts to love their God,
And sigh they have no souls to be beloved.
Man -- only man -- the image of his God --
Lets God pass by when He walks forth at night.
Poets
Poets are strange -- not always understood
By many is their gift,
Which is for evil or for mighty good --
To lower or to lift.
Upon their spirits there hath come a breath;
Who reads their verse
Will rise to higher life, or taste of death
In blessing or in curse.
The Poet is great Nature's own high priest,
Ordained from very birth
To keep for hearts an everlasting feast --
To bless or curse the earth.
They cannot help but sing; they know not why
Their thoughts rush into song,
And float above the world, beneath the sky,
For right or for the wrong.
They are like angels -- but some angels fell,
While some did keep their place;
Their poems are the gates of heav'n or hell,
And God's or Satan's face
Looks thro' their ev'ry word into your face,
In blessing or in blight,
And leaves upon your soul a grace or trace
Of sunlight or of night.
They move along life's uttermost extremes,
Unlike all other men;
And in their spirit's depths sleep strangest dreams,
Like shadows in a glen.
They all are dreamers; in the day and night
Ever across their souls
The wondrous mystery of the dark or bright
In mystic rhythm rolls.
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