Richard Watson Gilder

The Celestial Passion. Part 1. 2. The Poet and His Master

One day the poet's harp lay on the ground,
Tho' from it rose a strange and trembling sound
What time the wind swept over with a moan,
Or, now and then, a faint and tinkling tone
When a dead leaf fell shuddering from a tree
And shook the silent wires all tremulously;
And near it, dumb with sorrow, and alone
The poet sat. His heart was like a stone.

Then one drew near him who was robed in white:
It was the poet's master; he had given
To him that harp, once in a happy night
When every silver star that shone in heaven
Made music ne'er before was heard by mortal wight.
And thus the master spoke:

⁠"Why is thy voice
Silent, O poet? Why upon the grass
Lies thy still harp? The fitful breezes pass
And stir the wires, but the skilled player's hand
Moves not upon them. Poet, wake! Rejoice!
Sing and arouse the melancholy land!"

"Master, forbear. I may not sing to-day;
My nearest friend, the brother of my heart,
This day is stricken with sorrow; he must part
From her who loves him. Can I sing, and play
Upon the joyous harp, and mock his woe?"

"Alas, and hast thou then so soon forgot
The bond that with thy gift of song did go—
Severe as fate, fixt and unchangeable?
Even tho' his heart be sounding its own knell,
Dost thou not know this is the poet's lot:
'Mid sounds of war, in halcyon times of peace,
To strike the ringing wire and not to cease;
In hours of general happiness to swell
The common joy; and when the people cry
With piteous voice loud to the pitiless sky,
'T is his to frame the universal prayer
And breathe the balm of song upon the accursèd air?"

"But 't is not, O my master! that I borrow
The robe of grief to deck my brother's sorrow—
Mine eyes have seen beyond the veil of youth;
I know what Life is, have caught sight of Truth;
My heart is dead within me; a thick pall
Darkens the midday sun."

⁠"And dost thou call
This sorrow? Call this knowledge? O thou blind
And ignorant! Know, then, thou yet shalt find,
Ere thy full days are numbered 'neath the sun,
Thou, in thy shallow youth, hadst but begun
To guess what knowledge is, what grief may be,
And all the infinite sum of human misery;
Shalt find that for each drop of perfect good
Thou payest, at last, a threefold price in blood;
What is most noble in thee,—every thought
Highest and best,—crusht, spat upon, and brought
To an open shame; thy natural ignorance
Counted thy crime; the world all ruled by chance,
Save that the good most suffer; but above
These ills another, cruel, monstrous, worse
Than all before thy pure and passionate love
Shall bring the old, immitigable curse."

"And thou, who tell st me this, dost bid me sing?"


"I bid thee sing, even tho' I have not told
All the deep flood of anguish shall be rolled
Across thy breast. Nor, Poet, shalt thou bring
From out those depths thy grief! Tell to the wind
Thy private woes, but not to human ear,
Save in the shape of comfort for thy kind.
But never hush thy song, dare not to cease
While life is thine. Haply, 'mid those who hear,
Thy music to one soul shall murmur peace,
Tho' for thyself it hath no power to cheer.

"Then shall thy still unbroken spirit grow
Strong in its silent suffering and more wise;
And,—as the drenched and thunder-shaken skies
Pass into golden sunset,—thou shalt know
An end of calm, when evening breezes blow;
And, looking on thy life with vision fine,
Shalt see the shadow of a hand divine."