What is it about poetry that catches
One unawares! - long after sights and sounds
Have piled up in a heap, that what redounds
In memory are the hasty dispatches,
Flight notes assembling certain form that hatches
The meaning - ah, this! - truth alone compounds.
In life, a principle that falsehood hounds;
In poetry, no less, the trends it matches
Rephrase life; otherwise, nothing to say;
That words are cupped hands round the sacred flame
That burns eternal: fire not of their making,
But revealing, not this, but being clay
To; as Christ spoke of stones that would proclaim
Him should the crowd be silenced, voice taking.
