A traveling poet arrives at a town cold and rain-soaked, wet and sore from the road, hoping someone will let him in because voices have called him. But the door stays bolted and no one answers, so he turns away. The poem then pulls back: the town is actually waiting for him with stones and jeers, ready to mock rather than welcome. Far away in the future—“in the blue of a thousand years”—he is finally understood and honored, though by then he lies dead, with fame at his crumbled head. The mood is lonely and quietly bitter, but also strangely calm. It captures the painful gap between a poet’s present rejection and a later age’s recognition, suggesting that true recognition often comes too late.
The Coming Poet — Summary
"Is it far to the town?" said the poet, As he stood 'neath the groaning vane, And the warm lights shimmered silver On the skirts of the windy rain. "There are those who call me," he pleaded, "And I'm wet and travel sore." But nobody spoke from the shelter. And he turned from the bolted door.
And they wait in the town for the poet With stones at the gates, and jeers, But away on the wolds of distance In the blue of a thousand years He sleeps with the age that knows him, In the clay of the unborn, dead, Rest at his weary insteps, Fame at his crumbled head.