Canto 19To a Hero-Worshipper
Book 1. Part One - England and Baroda 1883 – 1898
I
My life is then a wasted ereme,
My song but idle wind
Because you merely find
5In all this woven wealth of rhyme
Harsh figures with harsh music wound,
The uncouth voice of gorgeous birds,
A ruby carcanet of sound,
A cloud of lovely words?
10I am, you say, no magic rod,
No cry oracular,
No swart and ominous star,
No Sinai thunder voicing God.
I have no burden to my song,
15No smouldering word instinct with fire,
No spell to chase triumphant wrong,
No spirit-sweet desire.
Mine is not Byron’s lightning spear,
Nor Wordsworth’s lucid strain
20Nor Shelley’s lyric pain,
Nor Keats’, the poet without peer.
I by the Indian waters vast
Did glimpse the magic of the past,
And on the oaten pipe I play
25Warped echoes of an earlier day.
II
My friend, when first my spirit woke,
I trod the scented maze
Of Fancy’s myriad ways,