Atlantis

Ruler of beauty,
And crown of dreams,
What was it like, that place that gleams,
On the horizon of the human mind?
If were to go there, what would we find?

It is a duty
To consider this isle
The home of a unique grace and style.
But I think that humans lived in that place,
And they knew life as well as grace.

They wept at death,
And they laughed at birth.
More knowing, perhaps, than many who lived on earth,
But still human; I do not believe the tales
That like gods on ships with white sails

They fled at the breath
Of the burning mountain,
And, like drops of water tossed from a fountain,
They carried all the arts to other lands.
I would prefer to think that with our own hands

We have wrought beauty,
And now little owe
To those old masters of long and long ago.
Let them have their beauty in their own time;
It makes them, too, a better symbol for rhyme,

If we owe not a duty,
And if they no portal
To other lands found, no way to be immortal.
They were humans, gone long ago into the sea;
That makes more rich and beautiful their beauty.