It is only a little
song, "I stood on a tower in the wet." I have found few men who, whether
from the influence of those prints which are always on the outlook for
something to ridicule, or from some other cause, did not laugh at the poem.
I thought and think it a lovely poem, although I am not quite sure of the
transposition of words in the last two lines. But I do not _approve_ of the
poem, just because there is no hope in it. It lacks that touch or hint
of _red_ which is as essential, I think, to every poem as to every
picture--the life-blood--the one pure colour. In his hopeful moods, let a
man put on his singing robes, and chant aloud the words of gladness--or of
grief, I care not which--to his fellows; in his hours of hopelessness,
let him utter his thoughts only to his inarticulate violin, or in the
evanescent sounds of any his other stringed instrument; let him commune
with his own heart on his bed, and be still; let him speak to God face to
face if he may--only he cannot do that and continue hopeless; but let him
not sing aloud in such a mood into the hearts of his fellows, for he cannot
do them much good thereby.
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