Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/72

44 Alas, and hast thou then so soon forgot

The bond that with thy gift of song did go—

Severe as fate, fixt and unchangeable?

Even tho' his heart be sounding its own knell,

Dost thou not know this is the poet's lot:

'Mid sounds of war, in halcyon times of peace,

To strike the ringing wire and not to cease;

In hours of general happiness to swell

The common joy; and when the people cry

With piteous voice loud to the pitiless sky,

'T is his to frame the universal prayer

And breathe the balm of song upon the accursèd air?"

But 't is not, O my master! that I borrow

The robe of grief to deck my brother's sorrow—

Mine eyes have seen beyond the veil of youth;

I know what Life is, have caught sight of Truth;

My heart is dead within me; a thick pall

Darkens the midday sun."

"And dost thou call

This sorrow? Call this knowledge? O thou blind

And ignorant! Know, then, thou yet shalt find,

Ere thy full days are numbered 'neath the sun,

Thou, in thy shallow youth, hadst but begun

To guess what knowledge is, what grief may be,

And all the infinite sum of human misery;

Shalt find that for each drop of perfect good

Thou payest, at last, a threefold price in blood;

What is most noble in thee,—every thought

Highest and best,—crusht, spat upon, and brought

To an open shame; thy natural ignorance

Counted thy crime; the world all ruled by chance,

Save that the good most suffer; but above