THE POET'S SECRET
The secret he has learned it
And only, only he:
Heaven in his heart hath burned it;
To him alone 't is free,
And them from him who learned it
In wise simplicity.
From thousand suns it flashes,
It leaps in flower and flame;
The spring, from winter's ashes,
Cries out its silent name—
The secret of the ages
That, to the poet came.
Unknown to all the sages,
However wise they be,
Through his quick veins it rages
And soul of ecstasy;
It lightnings from his pages,
In all his songs 't is sung:
The secret of the ages—
To be forever young.
"THE DAY BEGAN AS OTHER DAYS BEGIN"
The day began as other days begin,
The round of work, the implacable city's din;
The New World's Babel, louder with each hour.
Then in a by-way,—a still, secret bower,—
A temple given to silence and to books;
And in its heart a sacred nook of nooks.
There, in the silence, from a priceless store
Of written tomes, a guardian of their lore
A manuscript uplifted to my view,
With reverent, loving hands—and then withdrew.
