ANGEL

What of thy gift -- the sacred store

Of living light thou hoard'st within?

What of that grace divine that o'er

Thy spirit ruled and made thee kin

With Heaven?



For grace it was, not earthly gift,

The flame that lent thy word its spell,--

The poet-power that dared uplift

Thy thought to heights where angels dwell.

Thy being's law, thy conscience' guide,

Thy inmost self, was breath of song

Unveiled in vision, poised in pride

A god wert thou amid the throng

Of earth.



What of thy gift? A rebel thou

To Him who would thy soul exalt;

The withered wreath that crowns thy brow

Was plucked from passion's charnel vault.

The goad of grace thou wouldst not brook;

The light within thou wouldst not free,

The fettered flame wild vengeance took

And made a Hell where Heaven should be.



Rise, Soul, from out they prison vile!

On rank, on riches, on renown,

Earth's vain rewards, man's frown or smile,

From poet's proudest peaks look down;

And in thy mind's majestic flight

Still upward urge, nor cease to soar

Till, bathed in Beauty Infinite,

Earth's shell shall sound thy song no more.



POET


Ah, cruel Sprite,

Thou tak'st delight

To wound the wounds my heart must bear!

In pity, cease

Nor give increase

To pangs that drive me to despair.

My lot is found

Where wrongs abound

That wring the withers of the mind;

Beset with woes

Man only knows,

And griefs removed from spirit kind.

Thou own'st no fount of tears and blood,

No felon flesh enfolds thee round;

Thou float'st not on the fetid flood

Where carrion reeks and shrieks resound.

Sunk in earth's slough, thou bid'st me deal

With angel themes, with worlds of bliss!

Am I not human, -- formed to feel

The ills that kill all joy in this?



Enough that I no solace sought,

Nor power nor praise nor gilded crest;

Too near my poet insight brought

Earth's scene of anguish and unrest.

O cruel gift, O crowning pain!

(Would that the poet's soul were blind!)

To see the depth -- yet not sustain --

Of woe and wrong that wastes mankind.



And yet through me, indefinite

And vague, there breathed a brighter sense,

As April's flowery breezes flit

And perfume e'en the vapors dense.

And to the world my thought (outpoured

While wandering wistful o'er its face)

Lost gleams of light, mayhap, restored,

Lost grace of hope or hope of grace.

But ne'er shall Poet drown the cry

That through the world rings loud and high:

Earth's unison of agony!



Come, Spirit bright,

Cast forth the night

That broods upon my somber soul;

Give me to cling

Beneath thy wing,

With thee to win the Poet's goal.

Above the hurricane's wild way,

Beyond the stars through ether spread,

Above the orb that lights the day,

Through spanless space and darkness dread,

Lead thou me on, till Heaven's own beam

Rest on the Poet's gladdened eyes;

And lower life's delirious dream

Be changed to light that never dies.

Then shall the Bard's sweet song be sung,

Then shall his pent-up music flow,

And all his soul to strains be strung

Unutterable here below.

From the Spanish.
Translated by R. Howley

LONDON, Oct. 14, 1898.
Source: The Ave Maria, November 12, 1898.