God pours for me His draught divine,—
Moonlight, which is the poet's wine,
He has made this perfect night
For my wonder and delight.
What is it He would declare
In this beauty everywhere—
What dearest thought of His is heard
In the moonlight's secret word?
To the human, the Supreme
Poet speaks in wind and stream,
Tenderly He does express
His meaning in each loveliness.
Simply does He speak and clear,
As man to man, His message dear—
Aye—and well enough He knows
Who shall understand His rose!
Night is but His parable
Secretly where He would tell,
As to an intimate of His,
The mystery of all that is;
Nor humblest, nor most exquisite
Detail or phrase does He omit
From His great poem, confident
It shall be noted what He meant.
And cunningly doth still devise
New Aprils for His poet's eyes
For whose joy all things were wrought,
That without him were as nought.
Holy Poet, I have heard
Thy lost music, Thy least word;
Not Thy beauty's tiniest part
Has escaped this loving heart!
While the great world goes its way
I watch in wonder all the day,
All the night my spirit sings
For the loveliness of things.
But for lonely men like me
It were wasted utterly
All this beauty, vainly spent,—
Unavailing lavishment.
Little cricket, never fear,
There is one who waits to hear—
Nor is there loveliness so shy
It shall escape a poet's eye.
For the world enough it were
To have a useful earth and bare,
But for poets it is made
All in loveliness arrayed.
For his eye the little moth
Wears her coat of colored cloth,
And to please his ear the deep
Ocean murmurs in her sleep.
Rustle gently in the breeze
For his delight the poplar trees,
And in the song within his head
The thanks from earth to heaven is said.