~The Book Of Wonder Encyclopaedia~

~Poetry - Arthur O'Shaughnessy~

~Ode~

			   WE are the music-makers,
			     And we are the dreamers of dreams,
			   Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
			     And sitting by desolate streams;
			   World-losers and world-forsakers,
			     On whom the pale moon gleams:
			   Yet we are the movers and shakers
			     Of the world forever, it seems.

			   With wonderful deathless ditties
			     We build up the world's great cities,
			   And out of a fabulous story
			     We fashion an empire's glory:
			   One man with a dream, at pleasure,
			     Shall go forth and conquer a crown:
			   And three with a new song's measure
			     Can trample an empire down.

			   We, in the ages lying
			     In the buried past of the earth,
			   Built Nineveh with our sighing,
			     And Babel itself in our mirth:
			   And o'erthrew them with prophesying
			     To the old of the new world's worth;
			   For each age is a dream that is dying,
			     Or one that is coming to birth.