6. Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

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 for ever, 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 with 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.