SONG is a pearl, a something shed

Out of the clouds of grace divine,

Whose lustre from within is fed,

Whose inner virtue makes it shine.

Song is a pearl. With patient toil

The singer plunges deep to find

The treasure of his lucent spoil

In the abysses of the mind.

And so for many a year I wrought,

With ache and effort, ere the time

When, slowly tamed, exuberant thought

Harnessed itself to measured rhyme.