Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/70

42 Shall I cast my lyre to the sod,

Rest, and give over the strife,

And sink in a voiceless life?

Said the Seer to the Poet: Arise

And give to the seas and the skies

The message that in thee burns.

Thrice speak, tho' the blue sky turns

Deaf ears, and the ocean spurns

Thy call. Tho' men despise

The word that from out thy heart

Flameth; do thou thy part.

Thrice speak it, aloud, I say,

Then go, released, on thy way;

Live thou deeply and wise;

Suffer as never before;

Know joy, till it cuts to the quick;

Eat the apple, Life, to the core.

Be thou curst

By them thou hast blest, by the sick

Whom thou in thy weakness nursed.

With thy strength the faint endue;

Be praised when 't were better to blame;

In the home of thy spirit be true,

Tho' the voice of the street cry shame.

Be silent till all is done,

Then return, in the light of the sun,

And once more sing.

O, then fling

Into music thy soul! Tell the seas

Again all thy thought; O, be strong

Thy voice as the voice of the waves, as the voice of the trees!

Tell the blast,

That shall shudder as onward it flies