Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WHY ARE POETS SAD? Saw'st thou e'er the clean proportions, Schemed in fulness of thy soul, Marred to look more like distortions Than the beauty of a whole ? Heard'st thou e'er poetic passion, Music-wrought to thrill the heart, Tamed by some insipid fashion, Or by players with false art ? Hast thou ever, with the feeling That the ill might have been stayed, Watched a loved one, while was stealing Death upon her like a shade ? Who thwartings such as these has had, May know why poets oft are sad. Poets' lives are daily thwartings ; In their souls they bear such needs, That to them are ceaseless smartings, What the world calls highest meeds. Music sings in their heart-stirrings, That can find no earthly voice ; Life's best actual forms are blurrings, To the beauty of their choice. Man's great sorrows, with heart-feeling, Daily they in secret moan ; From their eyes are often stealing For man's woes warm tears unknown. No poet 's he who can be glad, With so much round to make him sad. BURNS. Quivering with strength, from earth he springs; Defiant shouts his strange voice rings. Gazing afar, like some lone tower, His nostrils panting restless power, His big eyes darting eager fire, With rustic hand he strikes his lyre. From the long sleep, so dreamless slept, Scotland, like a roused laggard, leapt. Rolls the clear tide of a new song Through her heart's channels, void so long, High swelling now, with lively beat, To sounds so earnest, stirring, sweet. With quickened pulse each bosom hears, In tones that shift from mirth to tears, And where, too, clarion notes are pealed, Its inmost feeling bright revealed. A nation's face, thus freshly wrought, Beams with a smile of joyful thought. Few years had passed since first was heard Th...