The Poet

I

A priest of Heaven, some gracious hour,

Lowered to him chasuble and stole;

He sings a weed — it is a flower;

He sings a star — it is a soul.

II

He knows her voice, he heeds her call,

And Beauty holds him to her mother's-heart;

There lavishes — last gift of all —

The secrecies of speech, eternal art.

III

The poet marvels, while he sings,

At strangest bright eternal things.

The accent is not all his own;

Betimes the god sings on alone.