The Poet

He stands above all worldly schism,     And, gazing over life's abysm     Beholds within the starry range     Of heaven laws of death and change,     That, through his soul's prophetic prism,     Are turned to rainbows wild and strange.     Through nature is his hope made surer     Of that ideal, his allurer,     By whom his life is upward drawn     To mount pale pinnacles of dawn,     'Mid which all that is fairer, purer     Of love and lore it come upon.     An alkahest, that makes gold metal     Of dross, his mind is where one petal     Of one wild-rose will all outweigh     The piled-up facts of everyday     Where commonplaces, there that settle,     Are changed to things of heavenly ray.     He climbs by steps of stars and flowers,     Companioned of the dreaming hours,     And sets his feet in pastures where     No merely mortal feet may fare;     And higher than the stars he towers     Though lowlier than the flowers there.     His comrades are his own high fancies     And thoughts in which his soul romances;     And every part of heaven or earth     He visits, lo, assumes new worth;     And touched with loftier traits and trances     Re-shines as with a lovelier birth.     He is the play, likewise the player;     The word that's said, also the sayer;     And in the books of heart and head     There is no thing he has not read;     Of time and tears he is the weigher,     And mouthpiece 'twixt the quick and dead.     He dies: but, mountain ever higher,     Wings Phoenix-like from out his pyre     Above our mortal day and night,     Clothed on with semipiternal light;     And raimented in thought's far fire     Flames on in everlasting flight.     Unseen, yet seen, on heights of visions,     Above all praise and world derisions,     His spirit and his deathless brood     Of dreams fare on, a multitude,     While on the pillar of great missions     His name and place are granite-hewed.