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I
- ONE stood with his face to the light;
- He held a sceptre of song
- That ruled men’s souls till they strove to the right,
- And set their feet on the wrong.
- ‘I am but a slave,’ he said,
- ‘The servant of man am I,
- To sing of the life that is more than bread,
- And the deaths that are life to die.
- ‘And the might of my song shall sway
- The millions who sit in shame,
- Till they cast their idols of gold away,
- And worship the true God’s name.’
- So he sang, and the nations heard
- Through their drunken sleep of years,
- And their limbs in their golden fetters stirred
- As he sang to their drowsy ears.
- Hope woke, in her spellbound bowers,
- And gave heed to each clear keen word,
- Till Love looked out from a net of flowers,
- And called to his heart—and he heard.
- And his song rose higher, more sweet,
- As his dreams rose more sweet, more high:
- ‘’Tis Love shall aid me, and shall complete
- The spell I shall conquer by!
- ‘We two to men’s souls will sing,
- And the work shall be ours, be ours;
- Together welcome the thorns that bring
- More fruit than the sweetest flowers!’
- But the woman he loved said ‘No!
- To me all your soul is due,
- Can I share with a world, whatever its woe,
- My heart’s one treasure, you?
- ‘There are plenty to sing of the right
- And give their lives for the truth—
- But you are mine, and shall sing delight,
- And beauty, and love, and youth.
- ‘For these are the songs men love,
- These stir their dull brains like wine.
- They hate the songs you were proudest of
- In the days when you were not mine.
- ‘And if for the world you sing
- It will pay you with fame and gold,
- And the fame and the gold to me you shall bring
- For my heart and my hands to hold.
- ‘Besides—what steads it to try,
- One man against all the rest?
- Let the world and its rights and its wrongs go by,
- And hide your eyes on my breast!’
- Then the man bowed down his head
- And she crowned him with roses sweet;
- And he laboured for fame and bread,
- And laid his wage at her feet.
- And the millions who starve and sin,
- He shut them out of his life
- Where she was alone shut in—
- His ruin, his prize, his wife.
- And all that he might have been,
- And all that he might have done,
- These lie with the things that shall not be seen
- For ever under the sun.
- His children play round his knee,
- But he sighs as they come and go—
- For they speak of visions he cannot see,
- In a tongue that he used to know.
- He sings of love and of flowers,
- And forgets what they used to mean,
- For gold is lord of his empty hours,
- And fame of his soul is queen.
- And the woman has long possessed
- What she bade him win for her sake;
- But she holds with the gold accurst unrest,
- And the fame with a wild heart‐ache.
- For the light in her eyes is dim,
- Or dim are his eyes that gaze.
- There is no light that can light for him
- The gloom of his sordid days.
- He will die, and his name be enrolled
- Where marble makes mock of clay;
- (Oh, the pitiful clay, made brave with gold!)
- And there let it rot away!
