THE FOUNTS OF SONG by WILLIAM SHARP

@3"What is the song I am singing?"@1
Said the pine-tree to the wave:
"Do you not know the song
You have sung so long
Down in the dim green alleys of the sea,
And where the great blind tides go swinging
Mysteriously,
And where the countless herds of the billows are hurl'd
On all the wild and lonely beaches of the world?"

"Ah, Pine-tree," sighed the wave,
"I have no song but what I catch from thee:
Far off I hear thy strain
Of infinite sweet pain
That floats along the lovely phantom land.
I sigh, and murmur it o'er and o'er and o'er,
When 'neath the slow compelling hand
That guides me back and far from the loved shore,
I wander long
Where never falls the breath of any song,
But only the loud, empty, crashing roar
Of seas swung this way and that for evermore."

@3"What is the song I am singing?"@1
Said the poet to the pine:
"Do you not know the song
You have sung so long
Here in the dim green alleys of the woods
Where the wild winds go wandering in all moods,
And whisper often o'er and o'er,
Or in tempestuous clamours roar
Their dark eternal secret evermore?"

"Oh, Poet," said the Pine,
"Thine
Is that song!
Not mine!
I have known it, loved it, long!
Nothing I know of what the wild winds cry
Through dusk and storm and night,
Or prophesy
When tempests whirl us with their awful might.
Only, I know that when
The poet's voice is heard
Among the woods
The infinite pain from out the hearts of men
Is sweeter than the voice of wave or branch or bird
In these dumb solitudes."

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