If it is a world without a genius,

It is most happily contrived. Here, then,

We ask which means most, for us, all the genit

Or one man who, for us, is greater than they,

On his gold horse striding, like a conjured beast,

Miraculous in its panache and swish?

Birds twitter pandemoniums around

The idea of the chevalier of chevaliers,

The well-composed in his burnished solitude,

The tower, the ancient accent, the wintry size.

And the north wind’s mighty buskin seems to fall

In an excessive corridor, alas!