Life And Art

Not while the fever of the blood is strong,

The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less

With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless

The poet-should to help and soothe with song.

Not then she bids his trembling lips express

The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.

Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain

One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.

But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,

The day's illusion, with the day's sunset,

He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale

Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,

Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.

Then his lips open to sing--as mine do now.

Emma Lazarus





                                                                  The Innkeeper's Wife



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