15.07.2007, 18:43
1.
FAR from the pure Castalian fount our feet
Have strayed away where daily we unlearn
How Truth is one with Beauty. For we turn
No more to hear the strains we sprang to greet
When we were young, and love and life were sweet
Before the world had taught us how to earn
Its baser wealth, and from our doors to spurn
The Muse like some poor vagabond and cheat.
For we are young, and did not see the baits
That in the distance lured us down the roads
Where Toil and Care and Doubt, those lurking fates,
Subdued our pliant backs to alien loads;
Till long since deadened to the Poet's tones,
They fall on us as rain on logs and stones.
2.
YET what were love, and what were toil and thought,
And what were life, bereft of Poesy?
Who lingers in a garden where the bee
By no rich beds of fragrant flowers is caught —
A homely vegetable patch where naught
Is prized but for some table-caterer's fee,
And Nature pledged to market-ministry?
To me another lore was early taught;
And rather would I lose the dear delights
Of eye and ear, than wilfully forego
The power that can transfigure sounds and sights,
Can steep the world in symbols, and bestow
The free admittance to all depths and heights,
And make dull earth a heaven of thought below.
FAR from the pure Castalian fount our feet
Have strayed away where daily we unlearn
How Truth is one with Beauty. For we turn
No more to hear the strains we sprang to greet
When we were young, and love and life were sweet
Before the world had taught us how to earn
Its baser wealth, and from our doors to spurn
The Muse like some poor vagabond and cheat.
For we are young, and did not see the baits
That in the distance lured us down the roads
Where Toil and Care and Doubt, those lurking fates,
Subdued our pliant backs to alien loads;
Till long since deadened to the Poet's tones,
They fall on us as rain on logs and stones.
2.
YET what were love, and what were toil and thought,
And what were life, bereft of Poesy?
Who lingers in a garden where the bee
By no rich beds of fragrant flowers is caught —
A homely vegetable patch where naught
Is prized but for some table-caterer's fee,
And Nature pledged to market-ministry?
To me another lore was early taught;
And rather would I lose the dear delights
Of eye and ear, than wilfully forego
The power that can transfigure sounds and sights,
Can steep the world in symbols, and bestow
The free admittance to all depths and heights,
And make dull earth a heaven of thought below.