Art and Heart

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2>ART AND HEART.</h2> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,<br/></span> <span class="i0">It is not art, but <i>heart</i>, which wins the wide world over.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Though perfect the player's touch, little, if any, he sways us,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes with the saying;<br/></span> <span class="i0">And it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of the praying.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">It is not the artist's skill which into our soul comes stealing<br/></span> <span class="i0">With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player's feeling.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And it is not the poet's song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under the rhyming.<br/></span></p> <p class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And therefore I say again, though I am art's own true lover,<br/></span> <span class="i0">That it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.<br/></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />