HOMER and Milton blind, Beethoven deaf, And Collins mad and Savage famishing, And Marlowe huddled into a forgotten grave, And Chatterton—and sorrows everywhere Loading the witless air: Calamity and Death hunt the same wood, One strikes if other misses; neither rests, Making of Eden daily desolation, A bloody amphitheatre of Earth, Cinders of April turf. The enemies of Poetry, the fierce thieves Of beauty's and creation's miracle, Twin Caesars ravaging their captived Kingdoms, For envy slaying what else lives undecaying, Or maiming without slaying. ... If there were worser ills than Death to dream of, Worse pangs than hunger's and the numbèd sense, If even the long foul solitude of the grave Ended not other griefs of other men, And other fears; even then Poetry needs must breathe through lips of man Desperate defiance and immortal courage, Needs must hope bicker in his burning eye, And Death and hunger, madness and despite, Sink sullenly from sight. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MASTER BLACKSMITH by ARNOLD ANDREWS THE SKY-GYPSY by WALTER BARDECK ADVICE TO A BLUE-BIRD by MAXWELL BODENHEIM SONG by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE AS SEEN FROM MY WINDOWS by ELLIE WILCOX BURT EPIGRAM: A WALK IN SURREY by G. N. CLARK BOUNDARIES by CATHERINE CATE COBLENTZ VERSES ADDRESSED TO J. HORNE TOOKE ... WESTMINISTER ELECTION by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |