A POET cannot strive for despotism; His harp falls shattered; for it still must be The instinct of great spirits to be free, And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: He who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes: The next hour always shames the hour before; One beauty, at its highest, prophesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOVER MOURNS FOR THE LOSS OF LOVE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS IN ROMNEY MARSH by JOHN DAVIDSON THE QUILTING by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A WOMAN'S LOVE by JOHN MILTON HAY A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 1. 1887 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN MORAL ESSAYS: EPISTLE 4. TO RICHARD BOYLE, EARL BURLINGTON by ALEXANDER POPE |