You don't fulfill your early promise:
You're not the smartest
Kind of artist,
Any more than poor Blind Tom is.
Yet somehow, still,
There's meaning in your screaming bill.
What _are_ you trying to say?
Sometimes your piping is delicious,
And then again it's simply vicious;
Though on the whole the varying jangle
Weaves round me an entrancing tangle
Of memories grave or joyous:
Things to weep or laugh at;
Love that lived at a hint, or
Days so sweet, they'd cloy us;
Nights I have spent with friends;--
Glistening groves of winter,
And the sound of vanished feet
That walked by the ripening wheat;
With other things.... Not the half that
Your cry familiar blends
Can I name, for it is mostly
Very ghostly;--
Such mixed-up things your voice recalls,
With its peculiar quirks and falls.
Possibly, then, your meaning, plain,
Is that your harsh and broken strain
Tallies best with a world of pain.
Well, I'll admit
There's merit in a voice that's truthful:
Yours is not honey-sweet nor youthful,
But querulously fit.
And if we cannot sing, we'll say
Something to the purpose, jay!
THE STAR TO ITS LIGHT
"Go," said the star to its light:
"Follow your fathomless flight!
Into the dreams of space
Carry the joy of my face.
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