What Do Poets Want With Gold?

What do poets want with gold,     Cringing slaves and cushioned ease;     Are not crusts and garments old     Better for their souls than these?     Gold is but the juggling rod     Of a false usurping god,     Graven long ago in hell     With a sombre stony spell,     Working in the world forever.     Hate is not so strong to sever     Beating human heart from heart.     Soul from soul we shrink and part,     And no longer hail each other     With the ancient name of brother     Give the simple poet gold,     And his song will die of cold.     He must walk with men that reel     On the rugged path, and feel     Every sacred soul that is     Beating very near to his.     Simple, human, careless, free,     As God made him, he must be:     For the sweetest song of bird     Is the hidden tenor heard     In the dusk, at even-flush,     From the forest's inner hush,     Of the simple hermit thrush.     What do poets want with love?     Flowers that shiver out of hand,     And the fervid fruits that prove     Only bitter broken sand?     Poets speak of passion best,     When their dreams are undistressed,     And the sweetest songs are sung,     E'er the inner heart is stung.     Let them dream; 'tis better so;     Ever dream, but never know.     If their spirits once have drained     All that goblet crimson-stained,     Finding what they dreamed divine,     Only earthly sluggish wine,     Sooner will the warm lips pale,     And the flawless voices fail,     Sooner come the drooping wing,     And the afterdays that bring,     No such songs as did the spring.