BEETHOVEN deaf, and Milton blind! And you and I, of lowlier kind, With small yet vital tasks assigned, We too have known the spirit's ache At special powers disabled, make Our bitter plaint for the work's sake. Yet where our blunted tools we mourn, Divinest music strains are borne; Beethoven, eye us not with scorn! And Milton, of his sight bereaved, Vision and victory achieved; Twice must his crown be laurel-leaved! Ah, can it be that Fortune mocks With cruel-tender paradox The lives she gives her hardest knocks, And grants, in strange, relenting mood, Some super-sensuous aptitude, When well her maimings are withstood? Fortune? Her shrine is grey and cold. O Father of us all, behold Our handicaps, how manifold! Thou only know'st what self-wrong Must in the grievous count belong. Thou only makest weakness strong. And in Thine all-resourceful mind Alone our riddle is untwined, -- How he that loseth life shall find. O crowning Answer, heartening Grace, Lift Thou on us Thy regnant face, -- Crippled or no, we dare the race! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FIRE, FAMINE AND SLAUGHTER. A WAR ECLOGUE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO GOD AND IRELAND TRUE by ELLEN O'LEARY PEACE ON EARTH by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS DAWN by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS WORLDLY PLACE by MATTHEW ARNOLD PSALM 3; WHEN HE FLED FROM ABSALOM; AUGUST 9, 1653 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE PSALM 88 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE AN EPITAPH (AFTER THE GREEK EPIGRAMS) by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB |