When you are come by ways emptied of light <br />You'll say goodby, in that indifferent gloom, <br />To the quick draughts of old, yet with polite <br />Anguish of pride recall as an heirloom <br />A dawn when stars dropped gold about your head <br />And, so amazed, you knew not were you dead. <br /> <br />For, brother, know that this is art, and you <br />With a cold incautious sorrow stricken dumb, <br />Have your own vanishing slit of light let through, <br />Passionate as winter, where only a few may come: <br />Not idiots in the street find out the lees <br />In the last drink of dying Socrates.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/art-41/
