I HAVE written, long years I have written <br />For the sake of my people and right, <br />I was true when the iron had bitten <br />Deep into my soul in the night; <br />And I wrote not for praise nor for money, <br />I craved but the soul and the pen, <br />And I felt not the sting in the honey <br />Of praising the kindness of men. <br /> <br />You read and you saw without seeing, <br />My work seemed a trifle apart, <br />While the truth of things thrilled through my being, <br />And the wrong of things murdered my heart! <br />Cast out and despised and neglected, <br />And weak, and in fear, and in debt, <br />My songs, mutilated, rejected, <br />Shall ring through the Commonwealth yet! <br /> <br />And you, too, the pure and the guileless, <br />In the peace of your comfort and pride, <br />You have mocked at my bodily vileness, <br />You have tempted and cast me aside. <br />But wronged, and cast out, drink-sodden, <br />But shunned, and insane and unclean, <br />I have dared where few others have trodden, <br />I have seen what few others have seen. <br /> <br />I have seen your souls bare for a season, <br />I have heard as a deaf man can hear, <br />I have seen you deprived of your reason <br />And stricken with deadliest fear. <br />And when beautiful night hid the shocking <br />Black shame of the day that was past, <br />I felt the great universe rocking <br />With the truth that was coming at last!<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-soul-of-a-poet-3/
