Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/157

Rh Of thoughts that never, never can be spoken,

Too frail for the rough usage of men's words—

Thoughts that shall keep their silence all unbroken

Till music once more stirs them;—then like birds

That in the night-time slumber, they shall wake,

While all the leaves of all the forest shake.

O, hark! I hear it now, that tender strain

Fulfilled with all of sorrow save its pain.

THE POET'S FAME

the songs of power the poet wrought

To shake the hearts of men. Yea, he had caught

The inarticulate and murmuring sound

That comes at midnight from the darkened ground

When the earth sleeps; for this he framed a word

Of human speech, and hearts were strangely stirred

That listened. And for him the evening dew

Fell with a sound of music, and the blue

Of the deep, starry sky he had the art

To put in language that did seem a part

Of the great scope and progeny of nature.

In woods, or waves, or winds, there was no creature

Mysterious to him. He was too wise

Either to fear, or follow, or despise

Whom men call Science—for he knew full well

All she had told, or still might live to tell,

Was known to him before her very birth;

Yea, that there was no secret of the earth,

Nor of the waters under, nor the skies,

That had been hidden from the poet's eyes;

By him there was no ocean unexplored,

Nor any savage coast that had not roared

Its music in his ears.