Priest and Poet; Response

PRIEST AND POET. The priest at the foot of the ladder stood weeping, The poet stood smiling at the head of the stair; Said the priest to the singer: "1 pray you to tell me The road that you traveled to get where you r.re. 1 have stood here as herald and watchman and shepherd Since long years before you were born, night and day; There's only one road to the place you are standing, And I know that you never ascended this way." Said the poet, in turn, to the sad, holy preacher: "You are right, I am certain, so rest and be calm; No ladder I climbed, no creed was my teacher, God made me up here; 1 was born where 1 am." —Ben Franklin Bonnell, in National Magazine. RESPONSE. {For the Improvement Era.) BY BISHOP 0. F. WHITNEY. What you say may be true, both of poet and preacher, One at head of the flight, one at foot of the stair. But tell me, which one the more truly God's teacher, Because of his standing down here, or up there? If each does his duty, no more is demanded. Then what cause for weeping, as if weal or woe Were a question of rank, a matter of station, A problem of stature and stilts high or low! Moreover, the poet may preach, and the preacher A poet may be, though no poem he brings. 'Tis not rhyming alone — not sound makes the singer; 'tis He must see, hear and feel all the songs that he'sings. I am not at all certain no creed and no climbing Were needful to place poets just where they are. guerdon E'en the spot of one's birth, may it not be the For life on some planet pre-mortal, afar? An heir of the ages is poet, is preacher, A composite product, as everything shows. The poet is "born," but is also created, And haply the preacher helped make him—who knows? Salt Lake City, Utah.