Whether or not we read him, we can feel From time to time the vigor of his name Against us like a finger for the shame And emptiness of what our souls reveal In books that are as altars where we kneel To consecrate the flicker, not the flame. Credo I cannot find my way: there is no star In all the shrouded heavens anywhere; And there is not a whisper in the air Of any living voice but one so far That I can hear it only as a bar Of lost, imperial music, played when fair And angel fingers wove, and unaware, Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are. No, there is not a glimmer, nor a call, For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears, The black and awful chaos of the night; For through it all, -- above, beyond it all, -- I know the far-sent message of the years, I feel the coming glory of the Light! On the Night of a Friend's Wedding If ever I am old, and all alone, I shall have killed one grief, at any rate; For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown. The devil only knows what I have done, But here I am, and here are six or eight Good friends, who most ingenuously prate About my songs to such and such a one. But everything is all askew to-night, -- As if the time were come, or almost come, For their untenanted mirage of me To lose itself and crumble out of sight, Like a tall ship that floats above the foam A little while, and then breaks utterly. Sonnet The master and the slave go hand in hand, Though touch be lost. The poet is a slave, And there be kings do sorrowfully crave The joyance that a scullion may command. But, ah, the sonnet-slave must understand The mission of his bondage, or the grave May clasp his bones, or ever he shall save The perfect word that is the poet's wand! The sonnet is a crown, whereof the rhymes Are for Thought's purest gold the jewel-stones; But shapes and echoes that are never done Will haunt the workshop, as regret sometimes Will bring with human yearning to sad thrones The crash of battles that are never won. Verlaine Why do you dig like long-clawed scavengers To touch the covered corpse of him that fled The uplands for the fens, and rioted Like a sick satyr with doom's worshippers? Come! let the grass grow there; and leave his verse To tell the story of the life he led. Let the man go: let the dead flesh be dead, And let the worms be its biographers. Song sloughs away the sin to find redress In art's complete remembrance: nothing clings For long but laurel to the stricken brow That felt the Muse's finger; nothing less Than hell's fulfilment of the end of things Can blot the star that shines on Paris now. Sonnet