BE failure mine, not fame; Let not the ignorant, applauding crowd With coarse Hosannas loud, Worse than the carping critic's venal blame, Flout my dishonoured name. I alone know the goal I strove to win, How strait the gate, how few may enter in, How high the white peaks loom upon the skies, Too far, too fair, too faint for mortal eyes. Brief is our road, evil and few our days, Spare them the insult of unworthy praise! Let the conspiring throng Laud the obscure, the inarticulate line, Which, wilfully defrauding sense and song, Drags its dull length along, Or those whose doggerel Muse delights to teach Treasures of gutter-speech. Such praise be never mine! Too great, too deep the reverence I owe To those whose pious hands were first to sow The little seed by Fate decreed to grow, To the sweet roses of our English tongue, The immortal, honeyed measures sung, The lucid radiance fine; Not the clipt speech, the dark mock-mysteries Shall ever charm like these, Such praise be never mine! But let me still regard with straining sight The perilous steep, the yet unconquered height, Let me a little higher than the plain, Admire, aspire, faint, and recede again, Advancing, failing, still Not far above the sights and sounds of life, The humble hearts of men, the toil, the strife, Let me unmarked admire The cloud-wrapt heights, the dark glooms dealing fire, For should I gain even for a moment's space To see the young Apollo face to face, Pressing my feet against the sacred hill, What gain were it to feel Life hid no worthy secret to reveal, No thick-veiled heights beyond; And I, knowing how weak my voice and brain, Should feel not joy, but an immense despond, And for the chequered victories that were, Only a blank despair? Therefore I seek not praise, But with my lot am well content, If only, when my days are done, Somewhere beneath the aspect of the sun, Haply some grateful, humbler soul shall say: "@3Not on himself he spent What modest gift was his, nor on wise brains and strong, But to the toiling, unregarded crowd Of souls, by Time and Labour bent and bowed, For solace of their daily burden, vowed His litany of Song.@1" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OPAL DREAM CAVE by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE SEVEN ARTS by ROBERT FROST FRAGMENTS WRITTEN WHILE TRAVELING...A MIDWESTERN HEAT WAVE by JAMES GALVIN LOST ILLUSIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON PRAYER AT SUNRISE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE FAMILY by KATHERINE MANSFIELD IMPRESSIONS OF FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET (DE VOLTAIRE) by EZRA POUND |