Ode (O'Shaughnessy)

We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;&mdash; World-losers and world-forsakers,    5  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,    10  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    <small style="color:#0000FF;">15 <BR> Can trample a kingdom down.<BR>

We, in the ages lying<BR> In the buried past of the earth,<BR> Built Nineveh with our sighing,<BR> And Babel itself in our mirth;    <small style="color:#0000FF;">20 <BR> And o'erthrew them with prophesying<BR> To the old of the new world's worth;<BR> For each age is a dream that is dying,<BR> Or one that is coming to birth.<BR>

A breath of our inspiration    <small style="color:#0000FF;">25 <BR> Is the life of each generation;<BR> A wondrous thing of our dreaming<BR> Unearthly, impossible seeming&mdash;<BR> The soldier, the king, and the peasant<BR> Are working together in one,    <small style="color:#0000FF;">30 <BR> Till our dream shall become their present,<BR> And their work in the world be done.<BR>

They had no vision amazing<BR> Of the goodly house they are raising;<BR> They had no divine foreshowing    <small style="color:#0000FF;">35 <BR> Of the land to which they are going:<BR> But on one man's soul it hath broken,<BR> A light that doth not depart;<BR> And his look, or a word he hath spoken,<BR> Wrought flame in another man's heart. <small style="color:#0000FF;">40 <BR>

And therefore to-day is thrilling<BR> With a past day's late fulfilling;<BR> And the multitudes are enlisted<BR> In the faith that their fathers resisted,<BR> And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,    <small style="color:#0000FF;">45 <BR> Are bringing to pass, as they may,<BR> In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,<BR> The dream that was scorned yesterday.<BR>

But we, with our dreaming and singing,<BR> Ceaseless and sorrowless we! <small style="color:#0000FF;">50 <BR> The glory about us clinging<BR> Of the glorious futures we see,<BR> Our souls with high music ringing:<BR> O men! it must ever be<BR> That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,    <small style="color:#0000FF;">55 <BR> A little apart from ye.<BR>

For we are afar with the dawning<BR> And the suns that are not yet high,<BR> And out of the infinite morning<BR> Intrepid you hear us cry&mdash;    <small style="color:#0000FF;">60 <BR> How, spite of your human scorning,<BR> Once more God's future draws nigh,<BR> And already goes forth the warning<BR> That ye of the past must die.<BR>

Great hail! we cry to the comers    <small style="color:#0000FF;">65 <BR> From the dazzling unknown shore;<BR> Bring us hither your sun and your summers;<BR> And renew our world as of yore;<BR> You shall teach us your song's new numbers,<BR> And things that we dreamed not before:    <small style="color:#0000FF;">70 <BR> Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,<BR> And a singer who sings no more.<BR>