To Certain Critics

Then call me traitor if you must,

Shout reason and default!

Say I betray a sacred trust

Aching beyond this vault.

I'll bear your censure as your praise,

For never shall the clan

Confine my singing to its ways

Beyond the ways of man.

No racial option narrows grief,

Pain is not patriot,

And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf

For all as lief as not.

With blind sheep groping every hill,

Searching an oriflamme,

How shall the shepherd heart then thrill

To only the darker lamb?