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ntment And delight in hopes that were vain. Each poet is glad there was no cure To stop his lonely pain. For nothing keeps a poet In his high singing mood Like unappeasable hunger For unattainable food. So fools are glad of the folly That made them weep and sing, And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne And Drummond for his king. They know that on flinty sorrow And failure and desire The steel of their souls was hammered To bring forth the lyric fire. Lord Byron and Shelley and Plunkett, McDonough and Hunt and Pearse See now why their hatred of tyrants Was so insistently fierce. Is Freedom only a Will-o'-the-wisp To cheat a poet's eye? Be it phantom or fact, it's a noble cause In which to sing and to die! So not for the Rainbow taken And the magical White Bird snared The poets sing grateful carols In the place to which they have fared; But for their lifetime's passion, The quest that was fruitless and long, They chorus their loud thanksgiving To the thorn-crowned Master of Song. The Proud Poet (For Shaemas O Sheel) One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed, His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime. "Why don't you take up fancy work, or embroidery?" he said, "For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!" "You little ugly Devil," said I, "go back to Hell For the idea you express I will not listen to: I have trouble enough with poetry and poverty as well, Without having to pay attention to orators like you. "When you say of the making of ballads and songs that it is woman's work You forget all the fighting poets that have been in every land. There was Byron who left all his lady-loves to fight against the Turk, And David, the Singing King of the Jews, who was born with a sword in his hand. It was yesterday that Rupert Brooke went out to the Wars and died, And Sir Philip Sidney's lyric voice was as sweet as his arm was strong; And Sir Walter Raleigh met the axe as a lover meets his bride, Because he carried in his soul the courage of his song. "And there is no consolation so quickening to the heart As the warmth and whiteness that come from the lines of noble poetry. It is strong joy to read it when the wounds of the spirit smart, It puts the flame in a lonely breast where only ashes be. It is strong joy to read it, and to make it is a thing That exalts
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