Indirection - A poem by Richard Realf

Indirection.

Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle sug-
gestion is fairer;
Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, but the secret that clasps
it is rarer;
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes
it is sweeter;
And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmas-
tered the metre.

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the
growing;
Never a river that /tows, but a majesty scepters the
flowing;
Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he
did enfold him;
Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mighty seer hath fore-
told him.

Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and
hidden;
Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is
bidden;
Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of feeling;
Crowning the glory revealed, is the glory that crowns the
revealing.

Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled
is greater;
Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator;
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands
the giving;
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves
of receiving.

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the
doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of
the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the
heights where those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence
of life is divine.

^__Richard Realf.

Kansas in Literature
William Herbert Carruth
(Topeka: Crane & Co. 1900)
Pages 39-40