THE airy land wherein I move Was built of joy and poets' pledges. Some build a kingdom of cold love, As with a gem, smoothing all edges: Others rear cities of such girth Only themselves may venture in, Coaxing from old unwilling Earth Fantastic virtue or quaint sin. Many dimensions there may be Moving amid the honest three, But I've no need of chill four-space As lodgment to my motley race: Their presence is in weed and wind And every merry mind. There Galileo and Gemelli Frolic in their silver fetters, And Falstaff, with indignant belly, Makes a zany of his betters. The sick at heart, the lonely Still with cursing comrades go; Jocund Shylock opportunely Borrows from Antonio, And with papal pale grandees Babbles witty blasphemies. Bald Quixote and Sancho Panza Give tilt to scientific sages; Jove collects the obol duty, Taking weekly wages From Charon, feasting Hera's beauty ... Swarming the lines of lovely pages And perched on every fragile stanza, Midget-masters of woe and weal Frisk the phantom and the real -- Tasting their immortality In blends of bliss and irony. |