57731: The Poet In Pain

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