e and snap at his word
I have heard.

I have heard, and I watched them fly
All the wild leaves
In a hustled crowd, to the stormy sky,
At his word.

And they swept in a whirlwind wan,
Churned by his breath,
Out to the windways, where never sun shone,
Forth they swept.

Whiles they leapt in a maddened dance,
Swung scatterwise;
Eddied and swirled to a swift advance
Till they crept

Spent and worn, in their frenzied fear,
Leaves of brown-gold
Chittering feebly in masses sere,
Crazed and slow:

And I know, what never man knew,
Those poor dead leaves
Are the souls of men the grey wind slew--
This I know.

Poeta Nascitur

Tho' all mayn't know it,
Rules only, never made a poet.

He thought to shape his writings into verse,
He pruned them down to language fixed and terse,
But finding that would give his tricks no play,
Spurned his reserve, and tried another way.

This time he dressed the naked words with care,
Trimmed them with adjectives and adverbs fair,
And studying every law of form and rhyme,
Pieced up his metre into studious time.

But still, whatever medium he chose,
His work remained poor, tortured, unsexed prose.

One dew-drenched eve, whilst pondering in the vale
He felt the leaves a-quiver in the dale--
Stooping, he caught a whisper from the sky
That slipped from out the twilight whimsically.

Its tender sorrow touched him as it fell,
Quickened his fancies, stirred his heart as well,
In reverent awe he heard its mystic call,
A heaven-born glory permeating all.

He did not dare to pin that whisper down
To words so peacocked in a flaunting gown,
The forms of metre he had conned so well
Were all inadequate that sigh to tell.

No further use that artificial code,
Those simpered rhymes, his petty bandbox mode
Of tight-packed trumpery. No need to pace
The solemn pavements of the commonplace.

Each little trick, each fantasy of art
Were stones that blocked th' outpourings of his heart.
He looked beyond the great inrushing sea,
Seeing at last the hidden things that be!

And of the wave he learnt a cadence sweet,
Strong as its life, a lilt of rippling feet,
Whilst from the wind that swept the answering trees
He culled the moaning rhythm of the breeze.