Classic Poem

There was a man, who, loving quiet beauty best
Yet could not rest.
Attuned to the majestic rhythm of whirling suns,
That chimes and runs
Through happy stillnesses — birth in the dawn, and stark
Love in the dark;
The unconquerable semen of the world, that mounts and sings
Through endless springs,
And the dumb death-like sleep of the winter-withered hill
That warms life still,
There was a man, who, loving quiet beauty best,
Yet could not rest
For the harsh moaning of unhappy humankind,
Fettered and blind —
Too driven to know beauty and too hungry-tired
To be inspired.
From his high, windy-peaceful hill, he stumbled down
Into the town,
With a child's eyes, clear bitterness, and silver scorn
Of the outworn
And cruel mastery of life by senile death;
And with his breath
Fanned up the noble fires that smoulder in the breast
Of the oppressed.
What guerdon, to forswear for dust and smoke and this
The high-souled bliss
Of poets in walled gardens, finely growing old,
Serene and cold?
A vision of new splendor in the human scheme —
A god-like scream —
And a new lilt of happy trumpets in the strange
Clangor of Change!