A sentence uttered makes a world appear Where all things happen as it says they do; We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear: Words have no word for words that are not true.
Syntactically, though, it must be clear; One cannot change the the subject halfway through, Nor alter tenses to appease the ear: Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too.
But should we want to gossip all the time Were fact not fiction for us at its best, Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme,
Were not our fate by verbal chance expressed, As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime The Knight at some lone crossroads of his quest?
Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm. Or die so young, or live for years alone. They can dash forward like hussars: but he Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn How to be plain and awkward, how to be One after whom none think it worth to turn. For, to achieve his lightest wish, he must Become the whole of boredom, subject to Vulgar complaints like love, among the Just Be just, among the Filthy filthy too, And in his own weak person, if he can, Must suffer dully all the wrongs of Man.
All the others translate: the painter sketches A visible world to love or reject; Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches The images out that hurt and connect, From life to Art by painstaking adaption Relying on us to cover the rift; Only your notes are pure contraption, Only your song is an absolute gift. Pour out your presence, O delight, cascading The falls of the knee and the weirs of the spine, Our climate of silence and doubt invading; You, alone, alone, O imaginary song, Are unable to say an existence is wrong, And pour out your forgiveness like a wine.
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