C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Poet and the Crowd
By Théophile Gautier (18111872)
O
Nothing ever grows upon thy wind-beaten brow!
To the poet, bending thoughtful over his lyre,
The crowd also said:—Dreamer, of what use art thou?
It is I who make the harvests grow upon thy soil;
I temper the breath of the noon sun,
I stop in the skies the clouds as they fly by.
In my crucible I dissolve the crystals of glaciers,
And I pour out, from the tip of my white breasts,
In long silver threads, the nourishing streams.
The poet, in his turn, answered the crowd:—
Allow my pale brow to rest upon my hand.
Have I not from my side, from which runs out my soul,
Made a spring gush to slake men’s thirst?