The Three Songs

The poet sang of a battle-field

 Where doughty deeds were done,

Where stout blows rang on helm and shield

 And a kingdom's fate was spun

With the scarlet thread of victory,

And honor from death's grim revelry

 Like a flame-red flower was won!

So bravely he sang that all who heard

With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,

And they cried, "Let us blazon his name on high,

He has sung a song that will never die!"

Again, full throated, he sang of fame

 And ambition's honeyed lure,

Of the chaplet that garlands a mighty name,

Till his listeners fired with the god-like flame

 To do, to dare, to endure!

The thirsty lips of the world were fain

The cup of glamor he vaunted to drain,

And the people murmured as he went by,

"He has sung a song that will never die !"

And once more he sang, all low and apart,

A song of the love that was born in his heart:

Thinking to voice in unfettered strain

Its sweet delight and its sweeter pain;

Nothing he cared what the throngs might say

Who passed him unheeding from day to day,

For he only longed with his melodies

The soul of the one beloved to please.

The song of war that he sang is as naught,

For the field and its heroes are long forgot,

And the song he sang of fame and power

Was never remembered beyond its hour!

Only to-day his name is known

By the song he sang apart and alone,

And the great world pauses with joy to hear

The notes that were strung for a lover's ear.