TO A POET WHOSE VERSES I HAD READ

I WOULD not venture to dispraise or praise. Too well I know the indifference which bounds A poet in the narrow working-grounds Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.

He must work out alone his path to glory; A thousand breaths are fanning him along; A thousand tears end in one little song, A thousand conflicts in one little story;

A thousand notes swell to a single chord. He cannot tell where his direction tends; He strives unguided towards indefinite ends; He is an ignorant though absolute lord.