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...TO RICHARD R. WRIGHT - INSTRUCTOR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE TEMPTRESS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ON A PALMETTO by SIDNEY LANIER MARJORIE'S WOOING by EMMA LAZARUS THE CANDLE by KATHERINE MANSFIELD WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL HESTER PRYNNE? by KAREN SWENSON ISADORA DUNCAN DANCING 'IPHIGENIA IN AULIS' by LOUIS UNTERMEYER |