Miscellaneous Sonnets: The Mage

When I shall sing my songs the world will hear,
--Which hears not these,--I shall be white with age,
My beard on breast great as befits a mage
So skilled; but song is young, and in no drear
Tome-crammed, lamp-litten chamber shall mine fear
To pine ascetic. Where the woods are deep,
Thick leaves for arras, in a noonday sleep
Of breeze and bloom, gaze, but my art revere!
There I will sit, and score rare wisardry
In characters vermilion, azure, gold,
With bird, starred flower, and peering dragon-fly
Limned in the lines; and secrets shall be told
Of greatest Pan, and lives of wood-nymphs shy,
Blabbed by my goat-foot servitor overbold.