The Poet

The poet must write at his heart's behest of freedom, beauty, joy, the life he lives; from the hidden keep of his soul he gives each word a subtle shade of rue or jest, though the madding crowd deem it excess, he sings over the angry rabble's cry, the fury of their zealotry on high, they would make a prison of his sweet flesh. But through the bars his words would expand the view the world has of its greed and pain, blood lust and steel defaming the land, mendacity taints the power's domain, jangling the nerves of those who dare command that young men's blood in the sand be their gain.