YE poets of our transient poverty! Weak strengths that pour sick passions into song! Who finding right struck dumb, enthrone a wrong, And crown mean lust with love's own royalty! Though I could find it in mine heart to be, -- In some defiant moods at self's high tide, -- A voice in your wild choir of craven pride, Yet rather let me cease from minstrelsy To grope for ever dumbly, onward still Up the old rugged way, the blood-stained hill That seen afar in youth seemed plainest road Leading from self the slave, to man the god. Yea, rather let me lay my music by Than for mere music's sake hymn slavery. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOREFATHERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES (1) by GEORGE HERBERT MEMORY OF THE IRISH DEAD by JOHN KELLS INGRAM SIR GALAHAD by ALFRED TENNYSON THE GRANDMOTHER'S APOLOGY by ALFRED TENNYSON |