@3If thou disdain the sacred muse, Beware lest Nature, past recall, Indignant at that crime, refuse Thee entrance to her audience-hall, Beware lest sea, and sky, and all That bears reflection of her face Be blotted with a hueless pall Of unillumined commonplace. The moving heavens, in rhythmic time, Roll, if thou watch them or refrain; The waves upon the shore in rhyme Beat, heedless of thy loss or gain; Not they, but thou, hast lived in vain, If thou art deaf and blind and dumb, Parched in the heat of morning rain, And on the flaming altar numb. Ah! desolate hour when that shall be, When dew and sunlight, rain and wind, Shall seem but trivial things to thee, Unloved, unheeded, undivined; Nay, rather let that morning find Thy molten soul exhaled and gone, Than in a living death resigned So darkly still to labour on.@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A DAY DREAM by EMILY JANE BRONTE ECHO AND SILENCE by SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO CYNARAE by ERNEST CHRISTOPHER DOWSON FABLE: THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON WALDEINSAMKEIT by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THAT HOLY THING by GEORGE MACDONALD NORMAN CRADLE-SONG by VINCENT JAMES O'SULLIVAN |