Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 1844–1881

Ode

WE are the music-makers,        
And we are the dreamers of dreams,        
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,        
And sitting by desolate streams;        
World-losers and world-forsakers,                 
On whom the pale moon gleams:        
Yet we are the movers and shakers        
Of the world for ever, it seems.        

With wonderful deathless ditties        
We build up the world's great cities,        
And out of a fabulous story        
We fashion an empire's glory:        
One man with a dream, at pleasure,        
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;        
And three with a new song's measure        
Can trample an empire down.        

We, in the ages lying        
In the buried past of the earth,        
Built Nineveh with our sighing,        
And Babel itself with our mirth;        
And o'erthrew them with prophesying        
To the old of the new world's worth;        
For each age is a dream that is dying,        
Or one that is coming to birth.        

(this has been set to music by several poeple in the last few years, but the best I know of is by our own sometime poster SongBob.)