THE POET'S MINISTERS.
POET.
Oh, my soul! the draught is bitter
Yet it must be sweetly drunken:
Heart and soul! the grinding fetter
Galls, yet have ye never shrunken:
Heart and soul, and pining spirit,
Fail me not! no coward weakness
Such as ye are should inherit—
Be ye strong even in your meekness.
Born were ye to these strange uses,
To brief joy and crushing ill,
To small good and great abuses;
Yet oh, yield not, till they kill.
The stag wounded runneth steady
With his blood in streams a-gushing;
Soul and spirit, be ye ready
For the arrows toward ye rushing.
SPIRIT OF THE FLOWERS.
Now what ails our gentle friend?
In his eye a meaning double,
Sorrow and defiance blend—
Let us soothe him of his trouble.
Poet! do not pass us by:
See how we are robed to meet you;
Heed you not our perfumed sigh?
Heed you not how sweet we greet you?
Ever since the breath of morn
We have waited for your coming,
Fearing when the bee's dull horn
Round our quiet bower was humming:
We have kept our sweets for thee—
Poet, do not pass us by:
Place us on thy breast, for see!
By the sunset we must die.
SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN STREAM.
Bathe thy pale face in the flood
Which overflows this crystal fountain,
Then to rouse thy sluggish blood,
Seek its source far up the mountain.
Note thou how the stream doth sing
Its soft carol, low and light,
To the jagged rocks that fling
Mildew shadows, black and blight.
Learn a lesson from the stream,
Poet! though thy path may lie
Hid forever from the gleam
Of the blue and sunny sky,—
Though thy way be steep and long,
Sing thou still a cheerful song!
SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.
Come sister spirits, touch his eyelids newly,
With that rare juice whose magic power it is,
To give the rose-hue to those things which truly
Wear the sad livery of ugliness.
Oh, dignify the office of the meanest
Of all God's manifold created things;
And sprinkle his heart's wounds with the serenest
Waters of sweetness, from our fabled springs.
Oh, close him round with visions of all rareness,
Make him see everything with smiling eye;
Let all his dreams be unsurpassed for fairness,
And what we feign out-charm reality.
Come, sister spirits, up and do your duty;
When the Poet pines, feast his soul with beauty.
SPIRIT OF THE TREES.
Let us wave our branches gently
With a murmur low and loving;
He will say we sang him quaintly
Some old ballad, sweetly moving.
'Tis of all the ways the surest
To awake a poet's fancies,
For he loves these things the purest—
Sigh of leaves, and scent of pansies.
He has loved us, we will love him,
And will cheer his hour of sadness,
Spirits, wave your boughs above him
To a measure of soft gladness.
SPIRIT OF LOVE.
Ye gentle ministers, ye have done well,
But 'tis for love that most the poet pineth,
And till I spell him with my magic spell,
In vain for him earth smiles or heaven shineth.
Behold I touch his heart, and there upspring
Blooms to his cheeks, and flashes to his eyes;
His scornful lips upon the instant sing,
And all his pulses leap with ecstasies.
'Tis love the poet wants; he cannot live
Without caressing and without caress,
Which all to charity his fellows give;
But I will wrap his soul in tenderness,
And straightway from his lips will burst a song
All loving hearts shall echo and prolong.
POET.
O Earth, and Sky, and Flowers, and Streams agushing,
God made ye beautiful to make us blest:
O bright-winged Songsters through the blue air rushing;
O murmuring Tree-tops, by the winds carest;
O Waves of Ocean, Ripples of the River,
O Dew and Fragrance, Sunlight, and Starbeam,
O blessed summer-sounds that round me quiver,
Delights impassable that round me teem—
Oh all things beautiful! God made ye so
That the glad hearts of men might overflow!
O Soul within me, whose wings sweep a lyre—
God gave thee song that thou might'st give him praise;
O Heart that glows with the Promethean fire,
O Spirit whose fine chords some influence plays:
O all sweet thoughts and beautiful emotions,
O smiles and tears, and trembling and delight,
Have ye not all part in the soul's devotions,
To help it swell its anthem's happy height?
Spirit of Love, of God, of inspiration,
The poet's glad heart bursts in acclamation!
CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
Ring every flower-bell on the wind,
And let each insect louder sing;
Let elfin "joy be unconfined;"
And let the laughing fairies bring
A wreath enchanted, and to bind
Upon the Poet's worthy brow
Heartsease and laurel, and a kind
Of valley lily, white as snow;
And fresh May-roses, branching long—
Braid all these in a garland gay,
To crown the Poet for his song,
Sung in our haunts this summer day!