Poetry Archives

O for the mighty wakening that aroused
  The old-time Prophets to their missions high;
  And to blind Homer’s inward sunlike eye
Show’d the heart’s universe where he caroused
Radiantly; the Fishers poor unhoused,
  And sent them forth to preach divinity;
  And made our Milton his great dark defy,
To the light of one immortal theme espoused!
But half asleep are those now most awake;
  And save calm-thoughted Wordsworth, we have none
Who for eternity put time at stake,
  And hold a constant course as doth the sun:
We yield but drops that no deep thirstings slake;
  And feebly cease ere we have well begun.