What does it mean to be a poet? It means, profoundly understood To flay your own too tender body, And lave others in your blood. It means to give of song unstinting, Lavish, beyond recall. The nightingale -- it costs him nothing; He has one song and that is all. And the canary bird, who imitates, Is but a sad and sorry thing. Your own must be the melody, However crude the song you sing. The Koran, with its ban on liquor, Deserves to yellow on the shelf, For wine allays the poet's torture When he sits down to bleed himself. And when he goes to see his loved one And finds her in another's arms, He will not stab her if the liquor Has worked in him its magic charms. Instead, his jealousy is gallant, And he repeats as home he goes: "I'll live a tramp, and die a beggar -- The least of all a poet's woes." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN by ROBERT BROWNING HIC VIR, HIC EST' by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY SONNET by ALICE RUTH MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON CREPUSCULE DU MATIN; SONNET by AMY LOWELL THAT HOLY THING by GEORGE MACDONALD |