If you could empty out a tiger's brain And wire up its spinal cord again To Sappho's brain, it would no doubt devour The tiger's nerves and sinews in an hour. Such muscles and such bones could not endure The avid hunger of a fire so pure. And you, Will Shakspeare, spirit sensitive, You lived past fifty, that is long to live And feed a flame like yours, and let the flame Remake itself and lap at flesh and frame. I say with Jesus, wisdom's eyes are blind To seek a poet out and think to find A slender reed that's shaken by the wind. Come cyclops of the counter, millionaires, Lawyers and statesmen in the world's affairs, And thin away like flesh which acid eats Under the passion even of John Keats. But if you felt and saw love, agony, As Shakspeare knew them you would quickly die. There is no tragedy like the gift of song, It keeps you mortal but demands you strong; It gives you God's eyes blurred with human tears, And crowns a thousand lives in fifty years. Enter the breathless silence where God dwells, See and record all heavens and all hells! FOR A PLAY Love began with both of them so gently Meeting, neither thought nor looked intently. Afterward her breath invoked the fire-- Breath to breath set burning their desire. Is there aught in flesh or is it spirit Conscious of its kindred soul when near it? Woe to flesh or soul that's wholly wakened While the other's soul-depths lie unshakened! How could she give him all sacred blisses, Long embraces, in the darkness kisses, If she was not his, all else forgetting, Lovers gone and other loves' regretting? That was just the place her gold was leadened-- Flesh there too alive, to him all deadened. She could harp not to his playing wholly, Yet his heart strings trembled for her solely. So this love play hastened to the curtain. Each one spoke his lines in accents certain, While at times behind the wings her glances Warmed the prompter's treasonous advances. Is there greater martyrdom than this is? You have staked your soul where the abyss is. You have given all--oh sorry barter You have lit the fire for you the martyr. You will still love on, or turn to hating, Days depart, your heart stays in its waiting, Where's the blame? She gave her heart's half measure, All she had, for all your soul's full treasure. What's the half to keep, could you achieve it? What your treasure if you could retrieve it? Never more shall you again bestow it... Now you have a song if you're a poet. Now you're ever dumb if song's denied you, You shall be more dumb than all beside you, While your soul is shaken by its torrents-- Dante songless in a Dante Florence. Age shall not make strong, nor deeper learning. Grief grows clearer with your eye's discerning. Pass the years, but oh the soil grows faster-- Richer for the roots of your disaster.