Song's Apostasy
WHEN is the Muse most lustily acclaimed?
When she in paths not native goes astray,
There to disown her record if she may,
Deny her lineage, turn as one ashamed
From all she was, and all that once was famed
To be her realm and birthright. Yet to-day,
Her need is rather to retrace her way
To where of old her steadfast signal flamed;
Thence counting it her glory to bestow
On man the things he is poor in, not the things
Life spawns forever with a rank excess;
To teach him beauty and not ugliness,
The upward not the downward truth; and so
To the mountains lead him, and the cold clear springs.
When she in paths not native goes astray,
There to disown her record if she may,
Deny her lineage, turn as one ashamed
From all she was, and all that once was famed
To be her realm and birthright. Yet to-day,
Her need is rather to retrace her way
To where of old her steadfast signal flamed;
Thence counting it her glory to bestow
On man the things he is poor in, not the things
Life spawns forever with a rank excess;
To teach him beauty and not ugliness,
The upward not the downward truth; and so
To the mountains lead him, and the cold clear springs.
Copyright in U. S. A. by JOHN LANE.