Amaranth

Once a poet, long ago,     Wrote a song as void of art     As the songs that children know,     And as pure as a childs heart.     With a sigh he threw it down,     Saying, This will never shed     Any glory or renown     On my name when I am dead.     I will sing a lordly song     Men shall hear, when I am gone,     Through the years sound clear and strong     As a golden clarion.     So this lordly song he sang     That would gain him deathless fame,     When the death-knell oer him rang     No man even knew its name.     Ay, and when his way he found     To the place of singing souls,     And beheld their bright heads crowned     With song-woven aureoles,     He stood shame-faced in the throng,     For his brow of wreath was bare,     And, alas! his lordly song     Sere had grown in that sweet air;     Then, all sudden, a divine     Light fell on him from afar,     And he felt the child-song shine     On his forehead like a star.     So for ever. Each and all     Songs of passion or of mirth     That are not heart-pure shall fall     As a sky-larks, to the earth;     But the souls song has no bounds,     Like the voice of Israfel,     From the heaven of heavens it sounds     To the very hell of hell.