Apology

For blows on the fort of evil

That never shows a breach,

For terrible life-long races

To a goal no foot can reach,

For reckless leaps into darkness

With hands outstretched to a star,

There is jubilation in Heaven

Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment

And delight in hopes that were vain.

Each poet is glad there was no cure

To stop his lonely pain.

For nothing keeps a poet

In his high singing mood

Like unappeasable hunger

For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly

That made them weep and sing,

And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne

And Drummond for his king.

They know that on flinty sorrow

And failure and desire

The steel of their souls was hammered

To bring forth the lyric fire.

Lord Byron and Shelley and Plunkett,

McDonough and Hunt and Pearse

See now why their hatred of tyrants

Was so insistently fierce.

Is Freedom only a Will-o’ -the-wisp

To cheat a poet's eye?

Be it phantom or fact, it's a noble cause

In which to sing and to die!

So not for the Rainbow taken

And the magical White Bird snared

The poets sing grateful carols

In the place to which they have fared;

But for their lifetime's passion,

The quest that was fruitless and long,

They chorus their loud thanksgiving

To the thorn-crowned Master of Song.