INDIRECTION by RICHARD REALF

Fair are the flowers and the children,
but their subtle suggestion is fairer;
Rare is the roseburst of dawn,
but the secret that clasps it is rarer;
Sweet the exultance of song,
but the strain that precedes it it sweeter;
And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the metre.
Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing;
Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing;
Never a Shakespeare that sottred,
but a stronger than he did enfold him,
Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.
Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden;
Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bidden;
Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling;
Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing.
Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater;
Vast the create and beheld, but raster the inward creator;
Back of the sound broods the silence,
back of the gift stands the giving;
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive
nerves of receiving.
Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiver,
and up from the heights where those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim starward,
and the essence of life is divine.

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