He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes. ‘Alas! you take it gravely; you refuse Your dreamland, right of common, and green rest. You break the mythic turf where danced the nymphs, With crooked ploughs of actual life,—let in The axes to the legendary woods, To pay the head-tax. You are fallen indeed On evil days, you poets, if yourselves Can praise that art of yours no otherwise; And, if you cannot, ... better take a trade And be of use! ’twere cheaper for your youth.’ ‘Of use!’ I softly echoed, ‘there’s the point We sweep about for ever in argument; Like swallows, which the exasperate, dying year Sets spinning in black circles, round and round, Preparing for far flights o’er unknown seas. And we ... where tend we?’ ‘Where?’ he said, and sighed. ‘The whole creation, from the hour we are born, Perplexes us with questions. Not a stone But cries behind us, every weary step, ‘Where, where?’ I leave stones to reply to stones. Enough for me and for my fleshly heart To harken the invocations of my kind, When men catch hold upon my shuddering nerves And shriek, ‘What help? what hope? what bread i’ the house, What fire i’ the frost?’ There must be some response, Though mine fail utterly. This social Sphinx, Who sits between the sepulchres and stews, Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens, And bullies God,—exacts a word at least From each man standing on the side of God, However paying a sphinx-price for it. We pay it also if we hold our peace, In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die. Alas! you’ll say, I speak and kill, instead.’ I pressed in there; ‘The best men, doing their best, Know peradventure least of what they do: Men usefullest i’ the world, are simply used; The nail that holds the wood, must pierce it first, And He alone who wields the hammer, sees The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart.’ ‘Ah, if I could have taken yours!’ he said, ‘But that’s past now,’ Then rising ... ‘I will take At least your kindness and encouragement. I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, If that’s your way! but sometimes slumber too, Nor tire too much with following, out of breath, The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight. Reflect, if Art be, in truth, the higher life, You need the lower life to stand upon, In order to reach up unto that higher; And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place He cannot stand in with two stable feet. Remember then!—for Art’s sake, hold your life.’