Classic Poem

What is thy worship but a vain pretence,
Spirit of Beauty, and a servile trade,
A poor and an unworthy traffic made
With the most sacred gifts of soul and sense —
If they who tend thine altars, gathering thence
No strength, no purity, may still remain
Selfish and dark, and from life's sordid stain
Find in their ministrations no defence?
— Thus many times I ask, when aught of mean
Or sensual has been brought unto mine ear,
Of them whose calling high is to insphere
Eternal Beauty in forms of human art —
Vexed that my soul should ever moved have been
By that which has such feigning at the heart!