Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

The Celestial Passion. Part 1. 1. Art and Life

Said the Poet unto the Seer:
How shall I learn to tell
What I know of Heaven and Hell?
I speak, but to ashes turn
The passions that in me burn.
I shout to the skies, but I hear
No answer from man or God.
Shall I cast my lyre to the sod,
Rest, and give over the strife,
And sink in a voiceless life?
⁠Said the Seer to the Poet: Arise
And give to the seas and the skies
The message that in thee burns.
Thrice speak, tho' the blue sky turns
Deaf ears, and the ocean spurns
Thy call. Tho' men despise
The word that from out thy heart
Flameth; do thou thy part.
Thrice speak it, aloud, I say,
Then go, released, on thy way;
Live thou deeply and wise;
Suffer as never before;
Know joy, till it cuts to the quick;
Eat the apple, Life, to the core.
Be thou curst
By them thou hast blest, by the sick
Whom thou in thy weakness nursed.
With thy strength the faint endue;
Be praised when 't were better to blame;
In the home of thy spirit be true,
Tho' the voice of the street cry shame.
Be silent till all is done,
Then return, in the light of the sun,
And once more sing.
O, then fling
Into music thy soul! Tell the seas
Again all thy thought; O, be strong
Thy voice as the voice of the waves, as the voice of the trees!
Tell the blast,
That shall shudder as onward it flies
With thy word, with thy song;
Tell the skies,
And the world, that shall listen at last! 

1. The New Day. Part 3. 19. Thistle-Down
2. The New Day. Part 4. 17. “He Knows Not the Path of Duty”
3. The New Day. Part 3. 12. Denial
4. The New Day. Part 4. 4. Song (Not from the whole wide world I chose thee)
5. The Celestial Passion. Part 2. 7. On a Portrait of Servetus

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