Explore "Lost Nation" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh! we are a lone, lost nation, / We, who sing your songs. / With his moods, and his desolation / The poet nowhere belongs.
We are not of the people / Who labour, believe, and doubt. / Like the bell that rings in the steeple, / We are in the world, yet out.
In the rustic town, or the city / We seek our place in vain; / And our hearts are starved for pity, / And our souls are sick with pain.
Yes, the people are buying, selling, / And the world is one great mart. / And woe for the thoughts that are dwelling / Up in the poet's heart.
We know what the waves are saying / As they roll up from the sea, / And the weird old wind is playing / Our own sad melody.
We send forth a song to wander / Like a spirit of ill or good; / And here it is heard, and yonder, / But is nowhere understood.
For the world it lives for fashion, / For glory, and gain, and strife; / And what can it know of the passion / And pain of a poet's life?