Oh Bard, wielding a tool mighty and spiky
Mightier than either the sword or rod,
You reign as monarch in fancy’s domain
Sketching life in all variety and mode
Which with pain and strife fraught
Or bright with gaiety and grace
In finer yarn than the gossamer thread
On a fabric of words in befitting verse
You steal away from the noisy crowd
Into the stillness of the cloistered cell
To dwell with Fancy’s mystic charms
Weaving downy dreams at will
You recount forgotten tales of yore
Of ****** battles won and lost,
Of lovers united, amour defiled,
Conjuring memories from abysmal past
You hearken to the moans of lovelorn souls
And sing of beauty in ditties fine
Triggering sparks into flames grow
In umpteen hearts that pine and whine
Babbling with the brook rushing swift,
Racing with the deer loping past,
You wander into mysterious woods
Where flowers, their richest odors cast
Your ears intent on the song of birds
That comes floating from the far off groves
And the whir of cicadas on the bark of trees
Breaking the calm of twilight eves
Alone you saunter the stretching strands,
Watching virulent breakers in fury heave
Often your heart dancing with the tide
And swinging with the rhythm of rising wave
You feast on the gleam of the auburn sun
And the speckled blue of the infinite skies
Watching the day dying in flame
And the night in a diadem of stars vies
All that’s lovesome meets your eyes
And commune to you in profuse delight
Which you turn into rhyme and rhythm
For the whole of mankind to devour and digest
From your harp flow symphonies sweet
Songs of longing, love and lust
Of idyllic happiness, peace and bliss,
Fuelling hearts with vigorous zest
Though outlawed by the great sage of Greece,
Branding the poet, aberrant and a fool
Oft beneath the façade of his wayward thoughts,
Lie heaps of wisdom for the discerning soul.
When Socrates likened poets to seers and prophets, his disciple Plato banished them from his ideal Republic calling them mad men. But we know that poetry is the best medium to inspire human hearts. As Kierkegaard says… “A poet may be an unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... and people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon’ “ – As poets, let us sing our heart out!