The Wild Knight and Other Poems/By the Babe Unborn

If trees were tall and grasses short,
 * As in some crazy tale,

If here and there a sea were blue
 * Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
 * To warm me one day through,

If deep green hair grew on great hills,
 * I know what I should do.

In dark I lie: dreaming that there
 * Are great eyes cold or kind,

And twisted streets and silent doors,
 * And living men behind.

Let storm-clouds come: better an hour,
 * And leave to weep and fight,

Than all the ages I have ruled
 * The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
 * Within that world to stand,

I would be good through all the day
 * I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
 * Of selfishness or scorn,

If only I could find the door,
 * If only I were born.