Chapter I: To a Critic

“It is but cunning artifice,” you say?
“To it no throb of nature answereth?
It hath no living pulse, no vital breath,
This puppet, fashioned in an elder day,
Through whose strait lips no heart can cry or pray?”
O deaf and blind of soul, these words that saith!
If that thine ear is dull, what hindereth
That quicker ears should hear the bugles play
And the trump call to battle? Since the stars
First sang together, and the exulting skies
Thrilled to their music, earth hath never heard,
Above the tumult of her worldly jars,
Or loftier songs or prayers than those that rise
Where the high sonnet soareth like a bird!