When the internal dream gives out
I let my eyes wander about
Amongst the gay and the grotesque
Ornaments upon my desk,

Where books are set on end and stacked,
By Plato and by Homer backed;
But, in the present mood preferred,
I see my Chinese crystal bird:

A Phoenix maybe, who can say?
That ship that, off Arabia,
Sighted the Phoenix flying East,
Its crew could tell about it best.

They did not need a second look;
They knew it by the course it took;
And who am I to disagree,
When China sends it back to me

To sit before me carven clear,
As if the very atmosphere
Of regions where but dreams abide,
Were seized on and solidified

To crystal that shall last as long
As Beauty gains from Art and Song,
From those who bend to carve or sing,
Their tribute to her flying wing?

Was ever artist more supreme
To catch, to hold, to mould a dream,
Year in, year out, day after day,
And never to let a line go astray

Till undistracted, undeterred,
He caught the seldom-flying bird;
From solid air he carved its crest;
And set it airy in its nest?

I send my thoughts across the skies
Of regions where the Phoenix flies,
Where Past and Present are as one,
To bow before the Emperor's throne;

And seek the artist in the court,
Where only such as he resort;
And from these barbarous times and ways
Offer my crude barbarian praise.

Before we meet, I shall be told
How one day in the days of old,
The Emperor hearing what he did
(For nothing's from the Emperor hid)

Commanded him to send a proof
Of what on wing or fin or hoof
He fashioned with such skill that, poor,
His name yet reached an Emperor;

And that, when he had seen the bird,
He paused, and solemnly averred:
The crystal wings without a flaw
Were those that in a dream he saw.

And how the artist with bowed head
And eyes cast down, replied and said:
That all that made for skill he owed
To Him from Whom perfection flowed.

For in the Emperor's mind were held
Art's emblems; and, if one excelled,
Of those who mould, or carve or limn,
His genius was due to him.

And that at this the Emperor laughed,
Praising the master of a craft
Which had so worthily enshrined
Things hidden in an Emperor's mind.

We need not meet, since this is so:
What every craftsman knows, we know:
Before our work stands up complete,
The Emperor must have dreamt of it.

And if we please the Emperor's whim,
And perfectly produce his dream,
Time can but turn the works of men
Into an Emperor's dream again.