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“Were I the Poet-Laureate of the Fairies”
(Written on a very small sheet of note-paper)
Were I the poet-laureate of the fairies,Who in a rose-leaf finds too broad a page;Or could I, like your beautiful canaries,Sing with free heart and happy, in a cage;Perhaps I might within this little space(As in some Eastern tale, by magic power,A giant is imprisoned in a flower)Have told you something with a poet’s grace.But I need wider limits, ampler scope,A world of freedom for a world of passion,And even then, the glory of my hopeWould not be uttered in its stateliest fashion;Yet, lady, when fit language shall have told it,You’ll find one little heart enough to hold it!