IMAGINATION.

I am the swift omnipotent magician;

All bounty’ s in my gift, all songs unsung,

All slumbering chords, all undiscovered crafts

Baffling their premature interpreters;

No law’ s beyond my searching; I’ ll condemn

No vice, despise no sorrow, scorn no joy,

Deride no virtue, throw no stone at Pilate,

But sweep my mantle round humanity

And round the pomp of nature; naught I’ ll find

Too mean, too great, too little, or too spacious;

Mine be the secrets both of hearts and stars,

( Small, measureless hearts; great, measurable stars;)

And love’ s old barbarous reiteration

I’ ll tolerate, and the great self-less peace

Like the deep sea’ s perpetual repose.

I’ ll not be parsimonious of my wealth.

I’ ll fill your heaven with many coloured moons

And hang such variable tides upon them

As strew the astonished fish along the shores.

I’ ll bring the planets nearer: I’ ll attract

Saturn within his hoop of shining rings;

I’ ll summon a great conclave of the comets

Which hitherto were strangers to each other,

And man, at nightfall standing on the crest

Of a familiar hill, shall marvelling stare

Into an unfamiliar firmament.

I’ ll show you Jupiter’ s rebel satellite

That on the outer fringe of measured space

Backwards revolves, striving against the law

That chains her anger to an irksome orbit.

I’ ll dry the seas and bring the unknown lands

To light, that on unchristened continents

Man stray dry-foot from Africa to Asia.

Oh, what new rivers then, what deep, deep lakes,

What caverns and what cliffs, what strange ravines,

What deserts, what denuded leagues of plain,

Should offer to his swarming multitude!

Peaks shall be islands, islands shall be peaks,

When I reverse the ordering and make

A mountainous Pacific continent,

A Himalayan archipelago.

And all the daily and the lovely things,

— The fawn’ s late bed of bracken, newly warmed,

The nets of fishermen through water sinking,

Drawn up all hoar with flake of silver scales

And round clear drops that tremble from the mesh,—

These little things, these nimble shy delights,

With the quick magic of significance

I’ ll not despise to startle into being.