free-verse16 lines
The Poet
by Abram Joseph RyanThe Poet is the loneliest man that lives;
Ah me! God makes him so --
The sea hath its ebb and flow,
He sings his songs -- but yet he only gives
In the waves of the words of his art
Only the ~foam~ of his heart.
Its sea rolls on forever, evermore,
Beautiful, vast, and deep;
Only his ~shallowest~ thoughts touch the shore
Of Speech; his ~deepest~ sleep.
The foam that crests the wave is pure and white;
The ~foam~ is not the ~wave~;
The wave is not the sea -- ~it rolls~ forever on;
The winding shores will crave
A kiss from ev'ry wavelet on the deep;
~Some come~; some always ~sleep~.