Though perfect the player’s touch, little, if any, he sways us,
     Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.

     Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure,
     Unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.

     So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes
        with the saying;
     And it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of
        the praying.

     It is not the artist’s skill which into our soul comes stealing
     With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player’s feeling.

     And it is not the poet’s song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming,
     Which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under
        the rhyming.

     And therefore I say again, though I am art’s own true lover,
     That it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

     [Illustration:  RECOLLECTIONS]

     MOCKERY.

     Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
       Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
     And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
       Unto the dead our all?

     Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
       With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
     And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
       Speak of its woe through tears?

     What do the dead care, for the tender token—­
       The love, the praise, the floral offerings? 
     But palpitating, living hearts are broken
       For want of just these things.

     AS BY FIRE.

     Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning
       For spiritual perfection here below,
     This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning,
       Seems my determined foe,

     So actively it makes a stern resistance,
       So cruelly sometimes it wages war
     Against a wholly spiritual existence
       Which I am striving for.

     It interrupts my soul’s intense devotions;
       Some hope it strangles, of divinest birth,
     With a swift rush of violent emotions
       Which link me to the earth.

     It is as if two mortal foes contended
       Within my bosom in a deadly strife,
     One for the loftier aims for souls intended,
       One for the earthly life.

     And yet I know this very war within me,
       Which brings out all my will-power and control,
     This very conflict at the last shall win me
       The loved and longed-for goal.

     The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel
       Is the white light that shows me my own strength. 
     A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel,
       It may become at length.

     Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
       I sometimes wonder if we shall not find
     That not by deeds, but by what we’ve resisted,
       Our places are assigned.