The Perspective

On the beach a child is playing
Saying. “In my hands I’ll scoop you up, O Sea!”
On the shore of worlds decaying
Straying comes a poet, “All your misery,
Tidal passion, pain, Humanity!
In my heart I’ll scoop and hold,” says he.

In a mansion’s shadows crumbling
Mumbling someone listens to the rapturous strain;
In the shadows of a rumbling
Tumbling Age a poet sets new words and plain
To humanity’s sad airs that stain
Towers of splendour built on human pain.

Workers in the slums are reeling
Stealing drinks to kindle life in weary bones;
In the gay world’s slums unfeeling
Dealing death to silence hunger’s strangled groans,
Stands a poet on the cobble stones,
Drinks humanity’s unhopeful moans.

Can he sit aloof rehearsing
Nursing vidual pin-pricks? While the millions wait
For their doom, can he enversing
Cursing private feuds his private tales relate?
For Lord Mammon’s Gala-day too late,
He must sing Man’s sadder truer fate.