57731: The Poet In Pain

<p dir="ltr"> Some men sing songs of Pain and scarcely guess<br> Their import, for they never knew her stress.<br> And there be other souls that ever lie<br> Begnawed by seven devils, silent. Aye,<br> Whose hearts have wept out blood, who not once spake<br> Of tears. If therefore my remorseless ache<br> Be needful to proof-test upon my flesh<br> The thoughts I think, and in words bleeding-fresh<br> Teach me for speechless sufferers to plain,<br> I would not quench it. Rather be my part<br> To write of health with shaking hands, bone-pale,<br> Of pleasure, having hell in every vein,<br> Than chant of care from out a careless heart,<br> To music of the world's eternal wail.<br> Whither is passed the softly-vanished day?<br> It is not lost by seeming spent for aye.<br> For as no bar of incense fumeth out<br> But leaveth finer perfume all about,<br> So the sweet hours, though fast they waste away,<br> In mild Moneta's shrine like odours stray,<br> And steal on us as, entering there, devout,<br> We shut the door upon the world without.<br> And likewise, too, the souls of men are freed.<br> Sweet lives in their consuming sweeter grow,<br> And larger, and more wholly earth-released.<br> Not prayer, unfired and faint, the high gods heed,<br> But the spent essence of a life aglow<br> Perfumeth heaven with fragrance unsurceased.</p>