Arthur O'Shaugnessy (1844-81)

The Music Makers

We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams.
Wandering by lonely 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, forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up with 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 part 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.

Top | Home Page | Poetry Index