With thanks to our chum Dinah, who may have contributed this seeing something of how Phoenixes need the flame. If you would like to contribute any remarkable, favourite, or appropriate bits of poetry to the Poet’s Sweatshop, please contact the blog direct.
So, when the crowd gives tongue
And prophets, old or young,
Bawl out their strange despair
Or fall in worship there,
Let them applaud the image, or condemn,
But keep your distance and your soul from them.
And, if the heart within your breast must burst
Like a cracked crucible and pour its steel
White-hot before the white heat of the wheel,
Strive to recast once more
That attar of the ore
In the strong mold of pain
Till it is whole again,
And while the prophets shudder or adore
Before the flame, hoping it will give ear,
If you at last must have a word to say,
Say neither, in their way,
“It is deadly magic and accursed,”
Nor “It is blest,” but only “it is here.”
Stephen Vincent Benét
Phoenix Ark's Blog 