Classic Poem

Am not I too a poet, though so low?
A little one whose songs are but child-cries;
A half-fledged sparrow who with weak wings tries
The God-wide air that larks have winnowed, — flies
For shame beneath the hedges.

This I know
When in a certain book to-night I read
How a true poet pleads: Call him not dead,
Who, straying through the fields of Paradise,
Hath met with Keats and known him by his eyes, —
Sudden my own eyes filled and my heart said:
" O Poet, what if in that world divine
Our Keats should know those poet-eyes of thine,

And claim with thee a spirit's brotherhood
In love of beauty? What if Dante should
(Hearing: On earth this bard writ The New Day )
Turn his grave, searching eyes on thee and say:
" Thy young world hath fair ladies, sure, and good,
And thou hast been Love's liegeman true like me,
But walked, methinks, a somewhat easier way." "

When God's true poets meet above the skies,
Above all wrong and failure, it may be
They deign to speak, with gentle words and wise,
Of those left singing yet a little while
(Here in the shadow, singing to the sun)
They weigh the good attempted, the good done,
And, hearing a true note, look down and smile.