The poets are the singing flames of earth,
Like rhythmic jewels that light the infinite blue;
From birth of time the minstrel's holy torch
Has lent the somber world a brighter hue.

How dark and empty seem the vanished years,
Save for the gleaming trails where poets strayed!
Kingdoms are silent dust, like crown and sword,
Their song alone illumes the distant shade.

Yet strange that this should be, that they who sing
Too oft receive the stone, denied the bread;
Pierced by the world while living, jest of knaves,
Signaled and laureled by the world when dead.

So Whitman went the way that poets trod,
And singing, quaffed the bitter, bore the scar;
England is Shakespeare, Greece is Homer's glow,
America is Whitman's rising star!