The Laureate of the World

All round thee spreads an unseen boundless sphere;
Who dares o’ertake thee, who may draw thee near?
To spurn thy name, to fill the page with rhyme,
And, buying metre, boast of heights sublime—
Such mortal bards, though proud in measured lore,
Shall sink, o’ermatched, within thy boundless shore.
 
A drop of water, in thy tongue devised,
Loses its cadence, lost, unrecognised;
In thine own tide of thought and glad excess,
All other voices fade to nothingness.
 
So great the blaze of thine unwearied light,
That talent’s fire, and genius’ burdened might,
Like billows on the shore, their clamour spend,
And in thy form celestial image blend.
 
Thou art a traffic of immortal days,
Wherein thy lasting fame each market sways;
And lesser poets, wan with hopeless plight,
Do find their orbits shattered in thy light.
 
For thou art space itself; with moral pride
Thy giant shadow falls on every side;
The small are smitten in their fragile way,
Their constellations quenched in dark decay.
 
Some, who advanced and set their songs aside,
Have from their chronicles been brushed aside;
And I, too, sought escape from all this cheer,
To dwell alone with my own verse sincere.
 
Yet daylight’s glare hath scattered my retreat,
And one day, some, with lifted brow, shall greet
Thy matchless name; yet all within thy sea
Shall taste of salt, their sweetness lost in thee.
 
A drop in history the new bard grows,
Yet all his life the victor’s banner shows—
Till poetry, in his enraptured hand,
Turns godlike, shaping worlds at its command;
And through the galaxy thy power is hurled,
To break, to build, yet never still nor furled.