Page:Collected poems of Flecker.djvu/111

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To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years,

And wrote this sweet archaic song,

Send you my words for messengers

The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,

Or ride secure the cruel sky,

Or build consummate palaces

Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,

And statues and a bright-eyed love,

And foolish thoughts of good and ill,

And prayers to them who sit above ?

How shall we conquer ? Like a wind

That falls at eve our fancies blow,

And old Mæonides the blind

Said it three thousand years ago.

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