C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Inspiration

By Paul Verlaine (1844–1896)

AH, inspiration, splendid, dominant,

Egeria with the lightsome eyes profound,

Sudden Erato, Genius quick to grant,

Old picture Angel of the gilt background!

Muse,—ay, whose voice is powerful indeed,

Since in the first-come brain it makes to grow

Thick as some dusty yellow roadside weed,

A gardenful of poems none did sow!—

Dove, Holy Ghost, Delirium, Sacred Fire,

Transporting Passion,—seasonable queen!—

Gabriel and lute, Latona’s son and lyre,—

Ay, Inspiration, summoned at sixteen!

What we have need of, we, the poets true,

That not believe in gods, and yet revere,

That have no halo, hold no golden clue,

For whom no Beatrix leaves her radiant sphere,—

We that do chisel words like chalices,

And moving verses shape with unmoved mind,

Whom wandering in groups by evening seas,

In musical converse ye scarce shall find,—

What we need is, in midnight hours dim-lit,

Sleep daunted, knowledge earned,—more knowledge still!

Is Faust’s brow, of the woodcuts, sternly knit,—

Is stubborn Perseverance, and is Will!

Is Will eternal, holy, absolute,

That grasps—as doth a noble bird of prey

The steaming flanks of the foredoomèd brute—

Its project, and with it—skyward, away!

What we need, we, is fixedness intense,

Unequaled effort, strife that shall not cease;

Is night, the bitter night of labor, whence

Arises, sun-like, slow, the Masterpiece!

Let our inspired hearts, by an eye-shot tined,

Sway with the birch-tree to all winds that blow,

Poor things! Art knows not the divided mind—

Speak—Milo’s Venus, is she stone or no?

We therefore, carve we with the chisel thought

The pure block of the beautiful, and gain

From out the marble cold where it was not,

Some starry-chiton’d statue without stain,

That one far day, posterity, new morn,

Enkindling with a golden-rosy flame

Our work, new Memnon, shall to ears unborn

Make quiver in the singing air our name!

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