Vast Kingdoms Once Did Span This Shrinking Sphere. Poem by Glen Martin Fitch

Vast kingdoms once
did span this shrinking sphere.
One monarch bold
a million men could rule.
To teach the dumb,
protect the poor from fear,
to sow these seeds,
a scepter was his tool.
If I could have
an empire of my friends
to aid and guide,
the happiness I'd find.
I'd plant and reap
a love that never ends
and hoard it in the coffers
of my mind.
But now I see
my gifts were bribes,
not seeds.
Good will
was to enslave you,
not to free.
I am a tyrant
out of fear and greed.
From loneliness it is
that I aggress.
Your solitude
was never poverty.
It is my bounty
that is barrenness.