Song ("A voice flew out...")

HUGH MAC DIARMID

But an all-controlling emotion

That has no physical basis.

Love resolved into the largest terms

Of which such emotions are capable,

The power of the spirit beneath that exquisite tremulous envelope

Possessing moral courage to a rare degree

Which can keep her steadfast in the gravest peril,

And a dignity so natural and certain

That it deserves the name of stateliness.

Death cannot intimidate her.

Poverty and exile, the fury of her own family,

And the calumnies of the world

Are unable to bend her will

Towards courses she feels to be wrong

-Imparting with every movement, every look,

Some idea of what the process of literature could be,

Something far more closely related

To the whole life of mankind

Than the science of stringing words together

In desirable sequences.