NOT even if with a wizard force I might Have summoned whomsoever I would name, Should anyone else have come than he who came, Uncalled, to share with me my fire that night; For though I should have said that all was right, Or right enough, nothing had been the same As when I found him there before the flame, Always a welcome and a useful sight. Unfailing and exuberant all the time, Having no gold he paid with golden rhyme, Of older coinage than his old defeat, A debt that like himself was obsolete In Art's long hazard, where no man may choose Whether he play to win or toil to lose. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OLD SHIPS by JAMES ELROY FLECKER A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 2 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN ECHO by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI TIRED MOTHERS by MAY LOUISE RILEY SMITH FRAGMENT OF AN 'ANTIGONE' by MATTHEW ARNOLD EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 21. 'TIS CONSTANCY THAT GAINS THE PRIZE by PHILIP AYRES |