The Poet’s Reason

I live to write; and write, good friend.
In part, I know, for you;
Though, while I do so, in the end
Myself it pleases too.

“The world,” you think, “may prize my rhymes.”
Of old, I hoped it would.
But many and many have been the times
I only deem’d them good!

I “love to write”? You near the truth.
I love to talk, as well;
And poems breathe a part, forsooth,
Of what the soul would tell.—

Ay, ay, the soul. For it how meet
That those we love should see—
Not poems—but the poem sweet
That all one’s life would be!