The Poet By Abram Joseph Ryan

    The Poet is the loneliest man that lives;
     Ah me! God makes him so —
     The sea hath its ebb and flow,
    He sings his songs — but yet he only gives
    In the waves of the words of his art
    Only the ~foam~ of his heart.

    Its sea rolls on forever, evermore,
     Beautiful, vast, and deep;
    Only his ~shallowest~ thoughts touch the shore
     Of Speech; his ~deepest~ sleep.

    The foam that crests the wave is pure and white;
     The ~foam~ is not the ~wave~;
    The wave is not the sea — ~it rolls~ forever on;
     The winding shores will crave
    A kiss from ev’ry wavelet on the deep;
    ~Some come~; some always ~sleep~.