I. IF heat of youth, 't is heat suppressed That fills my breast: The childhood of a voiceless lyre Preserves my fire. I chanted not while I was young; But ere age chill, I liberate my tongue! II. Apart from stormy ways of men, Maine's loneliest glen Held me as banished, and unheard I saved my word: I would not know the bitter taste Of the crude fame which falls to them that haste. III. On each impatient year I tossed A holocaust Of effort, ashes ere it burned, And justly spurned. If now I own maturer days, I know not: dust to me is passing praise. IV. But out of life arises song, Clear, vital, strong, -- The speech men pray for when they pine, The speech divine No other can interpret: grand And permanent as time and race and land. V. I dreamed I spake it: do I dream, In pride supreme, Or, like late lovers, found the bride Their youth denied, Is this my stinted passion's flow? It well may be; and they that read will know. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FREDERICKSBURG by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LOVE AND A QUESTION by ROBERT FROST THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST by RUDYARD KIPLING REBEL MOTHER'S LULLABY by SHANE LESLIE ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD by ROBERT BURNS SONGS OF THE SEA CHILDREN: 101 by BLISS CARMAN |