Apology
(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)
For blows on the fort of evilThat never shows a breach,For terrible life-long racesTo a goal no foot can reach,For reckless leaps into darknessWith hands outstretched to a star,There is jubilation in HeavenWhere the great dead poets are.There is joy over disappointmentAnd delight in hopes that were vain.Each poet is glad there was no cureTo stop his lonely pain.For nothing keeps a poetIn his high singing moodLike unappeasable hungerFor unattainable food.So fools are glad of the follyThat made them weep and sing,And Keats is thankful for Fanny BrawneAnd Drummond for his king.They know that on flinty sorrowAnd failure and desireThe steel of their souls was hammeredTo bring forth the lyric fire.Lord Byron and Shelley and Plunkett,McDonough and Hunt and PearseSee now why their hatred of tyrantsWas so insistently fierce.Is Freedom only a Will-o'-the-wispTo cheat a poet's eye?Be it phantom or fact, it's a noble causeIn which to sing and to die!So not for the Rainbow takenAnd the magical White Bird snaredThe poets sing grateful carolsIn the place to which they have fared;But for their lifetime's passion,The quest that was fruitless and long,They chorus their loud thanksgivingTo the thorn-crowned Master of Song.
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