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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SING OUT IN THE SUNLIGHT, by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON
First Line: Sing out in the sunlight, ye poets of men!
Last Line: Filtered out of the fireside, with flocks in the fold.
Subject(s): Authors & Authorship
First Line: Sing out in the sunlight, ye poets of men!
Last Line: Filtered out of the fireside, with flocks in the fold.
Subject(s): Authors & Authorship
Sing out in the sunlight, ye poets of men!
Too oft ye have groped in the cloister and den.
The sunny "Lucile" you have driven between
The walls of a convent, a sad "Seraphine."
Too long ye have chosen the subject uncanny,
And shrunken a heroine into a granny.
Why that "ebony veil and mysterious face"?
Did not nature intend that freedom should grace
The fair form of woman? When a model God made,
It was not a pale spinster who wept in the shade,
But a flesh-and-blood woman in God's out-of-doors,
Who eats when she's hungry (and probably snores).
"Not poetic," you say, but I pen it with pride—
She's a buxom young matron, with babies beside.
This only was wrong with Eden's fair type—
She picked apples of pleasure before they were ripe.
The real is poetic, red blood has a charm,
Soft cheeks are abnormal unless they are warm.
Must romance e'er be darkened by Clandestine's veil?—
Each boat on life's sea have a sin-tainted sail?
'Tis sin that is prosy—dead consciences jar,
But Virtue chords sweetly, and shines like a star.
Come out of your dungeons, ye bards of "Chillon"!
Ye "nocturnal orgies," arise and be gone!
No "oracles" need we, our omens to read,
But the brain and the Book and the Spirit to lead.
Instead of a robin, ye coax to your door
Some nondescript "raven with weird nevermore."
Too oft have ye haunted the cavern of Doubt—
That modern Avernus—and never came out.
And more dallied near some Charybdian verge,
Till they only could chant a knell and a dirge.
The air is a-throb with shafts for your pen,
Then out of the shadows, ye leaders of men!
Less of selfish Chorazin in story and song,
More of Bethany beauty to cheer us along!
Why dig up the mummies and rattle their bones?
Why seek the seance and the Cabala stones?
Why dazzle with limelight the fancy of youth,
While millions are dying for sunlight and truth?
O that Byron and Shelley and Kipling and Poe
Had fed on the sunlight till hearts were aglow!
What chaplets of glory could not they have won!
What mortal could measure the good they had done!
Give us more of the health of your heart and your brain!
Give us more of the wealth of a woodland refrain!
Hail Carleton and Riley! a rollicking team,
Who have skimmed the creation to feed us the cream!
Hail Miller, McFarland, Sam Foss, and Van Dyke,
And lengthen the list as long as you like.
Their wings may not soar with the masters of old,
But their voice is not chilled by aerial cold.
Sweet voices, let none of their banners be furled
Till they waken some Homer to sing for the world.
Then out in the sunlight ye singers of men,
Let Faith and her sisters have freedom again!
Give us less of the gruesome, and more of the gold
Filtered out of the fireside, with flocks in the fold.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
Other Poems of Interest...
PEELING AN ORANGE by EVE MERRIAM
TO A FRIEND IN THE MAKING by MARIANNE MOORE
LITTLE BLANCO RIVER by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
YELLOW GLOVE by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
THE AUTHOR TO HER BOOK by ANNE BRADSTREET
ON SOME SOUTH AFRICAN NOVELISTS by IGNATIUS ROYSTON DUNNACHIE CAMPBELL
THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK by ROBERT HERRICK
BRIGHTON ROCK BY GRAHAM GREENE by BILL KNOTT
A HUSTLE FOR THE FAIR by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON