My Song

I sang me a song, a tiny song, 
   A song that was sweet to my soul,
And set it a-float on the sea of chance
   In search of a happy goal.

I said to my song: “Go on, go on
   And lodge in a tender spot
Of some human soul where the fires of hate
   And selfishness are not.”

My song went on but a little space
   And hied it back to me;
And fell at my feet in a sorry plight—
   The victim of cruelty.

I gazed a moment and quickly saw
   Just how it had come about,
A cruel critic had caught my song
   And probed the soul of it out.

O, poor indeed is the human mind
   (And why was it ever wrought?)
That can thrive on husk in the form of words,
   And not on a sturdy thought.

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“My Song” originally appeared in A Rhyming (New South Pub. Co., 1895).