The Poet's Mission. Poem by William Billington

As an heir doomed to wait for a princely estate
Till the epoch of manhood appears,
Often inwardly sighs to possess the proud prize,
Fondly wishing mere months counted years;
Even so the poor bard, who is labouring hard
With a burden of beauty and love,
As he stands on the slope of the mountain of hope,
Often sighs for the summit above.
Yet, still he must wait, toiling early and late,
Till the bright-beaming goal is at hand,
Nor pause to look back on the dangerous track;
Like a pilot approaching the land,
He must cautiously steer, from the rocks keeping clear,
And the channel of rectitude keep,
Then into port heave, cast his anchor, and leave
His proud barque at safe moorings to sleep.
Thus will he wed fame, win a world-honoured name,
If he truthfully trust his own soul-
Use the unction and rod that were given him by God,
To chasten and purify all.
Aspiring for ever by hope and endeavour
His pain-purchased laurels are won,
With true self-reliance he bids proud defiance
To Fortune, however she run.
The true and the good he pours forth like a flood,
From a fountain deep laid in his heart,
But the false and the bad, though in golden robes clad,
Of his lash must lie under the smart;
The bright and the beautiful, lovely and dutiful,
Delicate, soft, or sublime-
Man's mirth and his madness, his sorrow and sadness,
Are subjects awaiting his rhyme.
The Sun and the Moon, and the star-chanted tune,
Which none but the poet can hear,
Are as fresh and as new as the bright-glowing blue
Of the heavens, when cloudless and clear;
And the Earth is as green as when first it was seen
By old Adam, in God's Paradise,
And its waters still flow with a luminous glow,
Like the lustre of Eve's lovely eyes.
Then let not Despair make his desolate lair
In thy love-litten heart, Poet-sage,
But with fervour and fire strike thy spirit-tuned lyre,
And utter the life of the age;
Through the deeps of thy soul, though dark passion-waves roll,
By God were thy faculties given
To find Music and Life in Death, Discord, and Strife,
To robe Earth in the garments of Heaven.
Fair Fancy may stray from the glare of the day,
From the glory and grandeur of noon,
To the stillness of night, when the hills become bright,
Washed with floods of white flame by the moon;
Or, laved in the streams of sky-mingled star-gleams,
May play with the planets on high,
Or down in the deep where the dolphin's bright leap
Flings an iris on Ocean's dim sky;
Or by the abodes of the angels and gods,
Mid the groves of Elysian bloom,
Or the mansions of woe in the regions below,
Through the languageless gate of the tomb;
But the shadow she flings from her magical wings,
Wherever her flight may extend,
Over land or the sea should as beautiful be
As the rainbow's ethereal bend.
As a falcon that flies in the clear summer skies
Self-balanced and still as the night,
Yet upward doth spring with unfaltering wing
To preserve an unvarying height,
So the poet whom Fame hath saluted by name,
Whom the press and the people have crowned,
Must higher and higher for ever aspire
If he would not recede from his ground;
Let him spurn Ease the charmer and put on the armour
Of Action, and fearlessly fight,
Daring Peril and Pain in defence of the reign
Of Truth, Liberty, Reason and Right;
Let him sail with Hope's breeze on the Future's bright seas,
And their fruitfulest islands explore,
Whilst the world's barque remains bound by Destiny's chains
To the bleak barren Present's dull shore.
Behold what a list of bright names, through the mist
Of dull centuries gleams like a star!
Let the lustre thus cast on his path by the Past
Kindle courage for life-lasting war
With aught that would e'er check or change his career,
Be it pleasure, sloth, slander or praise,
Like the course of the sun his bright race must be run,
Shedding light on the shortest of days;
And should Vice with 'red gold,' for which Virtue is sold,
To purchase his praise ever try,
Let him boldly refuse, and, like Burns, ever choose
To wed Poverty rather than lie;
For the muse never ought to be bartered or bought,
Since by mortals it cannot be given,
But was sent upon earth with the bard at his birth
As a badge of the knighthood of Heaven.
Though the Present with blame seek to blot his fair fame,
And a satire-lashed age curse his rhyme,
Yet his bolts may be hurled in the face of the world,
For the poet's protector is Time!
Then courage, sweet bard, thou shalt reap thy reward,
In the future thy planet will shine;
Let thy step steady keep while ascending Fame's steep,
For the summit is safe and divine;
Yea, banish dark doubt and the death-boding rout
Of fierce Phantoms that feed on thy brain:
See! the Angel of Hope fills with glory the cope
Of yon heaven, and Success tracks his train!