The Poet’s Empire
WHAT power can break the inner harmonies,
The rich imaginings, heard like distant sea
O’er purple meadow-lands at eve, while we
Look starwards mute? Hopes that like mountains rise
Into mid-heaven, and to entrancèd eyes
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Horizon-glories of what is to be,—
All these and more lie round us infinitely,
Beyond all language fair in cloudless skies.
This is the poet’s empire. Here may he
Reign king-like, throned in splendour and in power
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No power can shake, so he indeed be king.
Free as the wind, untamèd as the sea,
When earth weighs heavily, most in that hour
He cleaves the heavens in scorn on eagle-wing.
