I who am dead a thousand years, And wrote this sweet archaic song, Send you my words for messengers The way I shall not pass along. I care not if you bridge the seas, Or ride secure the cruel sky, Or build consummate palaces Of metal or of masonry. But have you wine and music still, And statues and a bright-eyed love, And foolish thoughts of good and ill, And prayers to them who sit above? How shall we conquer? Like a wind That falls at eve our fancies blow, And old Maeonides the blind Said it three thousand years ago. O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young. Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: WILLIAM AND EMILY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE NETHERLANDS by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE FOUND WANTING by EMILY DICKINSON HIS RETURN TO LONDON by ROBERT HERRICK WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF MEZERAY'S HISTORY OF FRANCE by MATTHEW PRIOR LEXINGTON; 1775 by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |