Classic Poem

No poet ever wholly caught
Or fully uttered Nature's thought:
The stream flows sweeter than the lay
Sung in its praise; the rosy day
Is fairer than was ever told
By bard sublime or minstrel bold.
The truest note is his who sings
The closest to the heart of things,
Though conscious, all the while, how far
Away his nearest ventures are, —
That earth and air and sea and sky
Are rhythmic with a harmony
Whose core of sweetness human speech,
Probe as it may, can never reach.

Nature's great anthem, all unsung
Save by herself! Could mortal tongue
But voice these wordless symphonies
And sound her music as it is!
Challenge the silence held so long
And syllable in perfect song
Her deeper wonders, larger moods, —
The splendor of her autumn woods,
The regal blossoming of dawn,
Night with its crown of silence on!
Chant the full glory of a star
And tell how fair the Pleiads are!
Hymn the informing life which glows
In the red bosom of the rose,
And makes the listening daisy sweet
With wide-eyed wonder at our feet!
Translate — what yet no human ear
To finest issues tuned can hear —
The elfin songs the blossoms sing,
Chimes that the merry bluebells ring,
The daffodilly's roundelay,
And what the happy kingcups say!
Make audible, by some sweet art,
The secret at the lily's heart!
Voice, in swift changes manifold,
The rainbow's sheen, the sunset's gold,
Moonrise upon the lonely seas,
The breath of morn on upland leas,
June's freshness, spring's prophetic stir,
The countless signs that herald her,
The majesty of hills, the rush
Of rivers, midnight's awful hush!

Yet faint not, poet-heart, nor miss
Thy birthright crown because of this!
Nature no miser is, to hold
And hide her wealth, as men do gold;
Nor yet a spendthrift, reaching out
An easy alms to every lout
Presuming on her grace. She gives
To none her high prerogatives;
Keeps her sealed orders, signed of old,
Inviolate within her hold;
Yet, pitiful of human need,
She bends to us with answering meed
Of sympathy, — where most besought,
Bestowing most, and grudging naught
That mortal fantasy can reach
And comprehend in mortal speech.
Her awful pageants go and come,
And leave thee as they found thee, — dumb;
Her sweet surprises throng thy way
And dare thy worthiest essay
To give them voice; the more pursued
The more they mock thee and elude.
What then? In ways unnumbered still,
She summons all thy human skill,
By signs which thou canst understand,
To grasp her purpose large and grand,
And make thyself, through guest of her,
Her loyal, true interpreter.

For Nature aye doth condescend
To such; her poet is her friend:
She gives him insight, lends him wings,
And bids him soar the while he sings;
Purges his soul of its old ache, —
The greed of fame for fame's own sake, —
Till, haply, in its place, he find
A burning zeal to serve his kind:
His song she witches with her tone
Till half it seems her very own:
By deeper than Castalian founts
She leads him, and to fairer mounts
Than fair Parnassus; bids him drink,
Unsated, at the purer brink
Of her pure lips, and walk abreast
With Truth upon her mountain crest.