You say a thousand things,
Persuasively,
And with strange passion hotly I agree,
And praise your zest,
And then
A blackbird sings
On April lilac, or fieldfaring men,
Ghostlike, with loaded wain,
Come down the twilit lane
To rest,
And what is all your argument to me?
Oh, yes — I know, I know,
It must be so —
You must devise
Your myriad policies,
For we are little wise,
And must be led and marshalled, lest we keep
Too fast a sleep
Far from the central world’ s realities.
Yes, we must heed —
For surely you reveal
Life’ s very heart; surely with flaming zeal
You search our folly and our secret need;
And surely it is wrong
To count my blackbird’ s song,
My cones of lilac, and my wagon team,
More than a world of dream.
But still
A voice calls from the hill —
I must away —
I cannot hear your argument to-day.