`Were I a Poet, I would dwell, <br />Not upon lonely height, <br />Nor cloistered in disdainful cell <br />From human sound and sight. <br />I would live nestled near my kind, <br />Deep in a garden garth, <br />That they who loved my verse might find <br />A pathway to my hearth. <br /> <br />`I would not sing of sceptred Kings, <br />The Tyrant and his thrall, <br />But everyday pathetic things, <br />That happen to us all: <br />The love that lasts through joy, through grief, <br />The faith that never wanes, <br />And every wilding bird and leaf <br />That gladdens English lanes. <br /> <br />`Nor would I shape for Fame my lay, <br />But only for the sake <br />Of singing, and to charm away <br />My own or other's ache; <br />To close the wound, to soothe the smart, <br />To heal the feud of years, <br />And move the misbelieving heart <br />To tenderness and tears. <br /> <br />`And when to me should come the night, <br />And I could sing no more, <br />And faithful lips could but recite <br />What I had sung before, <br />I would not have a pompous strain <br />Resound about my shroud, <br />Nor sepulchre in sumptuous fane, <br />Near to the great and proud. <br /> <br />`But only they who loved me best <br />Should bear me and my lyre, <br />And lay us, with my kin, at rest <br />Under the hamlet spire, <br />Where everything around still breathes <br />Of prayer that soothes and saves, <br />And widowed hands bear cottage wreaths <br />To unforgotten graves. <br /> <br />`And they might raise another cross <br />Within that hallowed ground, <br />And tend the flowers and trim the moss <br />About my grassy mound; <br />But, honouring me, would carve above <br />No impious boast of Fame, <br />And, not for Glory, but for Love, <br />Would keep alive my name.'<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/were-i-a-poet-i-would-dwell/
