Possibilities

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Where are the Poets, unto whom belong
        The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
        Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
        But with the utmost tension of the thong?
    Where are the stately argosies of song,
        Whose rushing keels made music as they went
        Sailing in search of some new continent,
        With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?
    Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
        In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
        Who shall become a master of the art,
    An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
        Fearless and first and steering with his fleet
        For lands not yet laid down in any chart.