From clouds of floating ink to mindful axes;
From soldiers ceasing soldiering to sing
To people happy to have paid their taxes.
I could imagine far beyond the real
Giving a shape to what had had no form
And grapple to my soul with hoops of steel
Those strange imaginings that keep me warm.
I could produce from nothing endless idylls
That would improve the world which I was given,
And though my Rome might burn while Nero fiddles
I would not notice how its fate was riven.
Imagination bodies forth the strange
To keep us calmed within abnormal range.
