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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=506675" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Proem.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I only knew one poet in my life.<br>— BROWNING.<br>I have not known a poet but myself,<br>If I'm indeed one, as I ought to be,<br>Considering how these many years I've made<br>The Muse now such a woman in my life.<br>No flesh and blood could put to proof the art<br>With which I wooed her; ay, and woo her still,<br>Though, as I deem, ere this she has been won.<br>I have not known another, as I say,<br>Who could be called a poet, or has been<br>Acclaimed such by the not too wise in wit<br>Who label literature's itinerants —<br>Professed discerners (as in every art<br>With sheer cock-surety there be those who<br>Deem their diploma Fame's own warranty);<br>Who in this journal or in that take stock<br>O' the issue of thought's making — song at best<br>A poor result, not to much tending (or if<br>Esteemed, good, e'en though flawed in some way still).<br>So these crumb-gatherers for the multitude<br>Still dole their wit or wisdom week by week,<br>‘Piece out our imperfections,’ choose, elect<br>In this or that craft him or her as first,<br>Second, or third, whatever the degree<br>Arrived at in the inkling of a whim;<br>And so with their diploma set the seal<br>To the rank world's preferment, failing which,<br>Mere poets must have a bad time of it!<br>Or haply some one in song's craft himself<br>Elects himself the chief musician, and<br>The other nine and ninety jugglers, who<br>Jig ape-like in the halo of his vogue.<br>'Tis then song does become ridiculous,<br>And the proud name of poet poor indeed.<br>Proud name? Alas! the power of pride is gone,<br>And the dull world's humility is theirs;<br>The new bards who, unlike the old, gauge not<br>The grandeur of the office they fulfil —<br>The old knight-errantry of Song who rode<br>Triumphant with God's targe in the world's eye,<br>Emblazoned with the heraldry of soul<br>In this wise or in that — the squires of Truth,<br>Love's worshippers or Beauty's votaries,<br>Whose mere life was the melody of all.<br>It may, in fact, be song at best is but<br>The rind of this life's apple, not its core,<br>And the chief singers still but mendicants<br>Of the world's love; and yet it is in sooth<br>The one thing sweet to its own votary;<br>As to the painter his art, too, is all,<br>And to the sculptor his. Ay, though but rinds<br>At best, allowed, of our life's apples here,<br>Yet the rind, no less than the core, is part<br>O' the perfect fruit — more toothsome than the core,<br>So the white flesh is eaten with it — so<br>Song includes life, as life, including song,<br>Retains the sweetness of its strength, and yields<br>To all sustainment and fruition too;<br>Though, as within the earthy fruit, thought's pulp<br>Is th' first thing still, and failing which indeed<br>The eater then deems his enjoyment null:<br>Song without life is such a withered fruit.<br>Ah! but thou sayest that song's subserviency<br>To life, the mere foot on the daily fact<br>Treading, not the imaginary air,<br>But the mire of the actual, breeds alloy<br>Too gross for beauty; that 'tis not in these —<br>The soilure of the animal, the slag<br>Of the material, or custom's pack, —<br>Ay, not in these the effluent wings dilate,<br>The breath diviner has its issue, nor<br>Spirit to heaven finds the nearest way!<br>And rightly sayest: Life in these is all,<br>And has with these its ending too; but song,<br>That more than life of which the poet sings<br>With power authentic in each syllable,<br>As the moon sends a gleam down watery glooms<br>To hint of heaven — song, as it were, unwraps<br>All the dense folds of life, one by one, so<br>To find a spark of the divine; or tears<br>The bodily vesture from the breathing man,<br>And on the soul's escape pursuing sings<br>Of th' more than life, which 'neath the earthy rags,<br>For years it may be blind and deaf and dumb,<br>Was so uncognisant that God was near —<br>That heaven was possible, and the escape<br>So easy when His sesame was said!<br>As thou, I then on song this value set,<br>That it can leaven life, — a yeast of soul<br>So quickening us, we are not mere dough, but<br>Dough with a resurrection in it here,<br>And capable of any miracle! —<br>At that we'll let it stand; sometime elsewhere<br>With other eyes and other ears we may<br>Perceive a higher meaning in it all;<br>Song-perfect then, or so life-perfect, we<br>Shall be the song, not make it any more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Crawford">Robert Crawford</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=506675" data-title="Proem. de Robert Crawford" data-description="I only knew one poet in my life.
— BROWNING.
I have not known a poet but myself,
If I'm indeed one, as I ought to be,
Considering how these many years I've made
The Muse now such a woman in my life.
No flesh and blood could put to proof the art
..."></div>
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