| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | VI. “Were I the Poet Laureate of the Fairies” | | By Henry Timrod (1828–1867) |
| | (Written on a small sheet of note-paper upon which a lady had requested the author to indite some verses) |
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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 | 5 |
| (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, | 10 |
| And even then the glory of my hope | |
| Would 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. | | | |
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