'Song'

‘Song’

Throughout the silver reaches of the dawn
Gentle and happy with a flush of rose,
All the high loyalties their hearts had sworn
And armoured Time could never quell nor any grave might close,
Rose up and broke in foam-fresh of morning sky:
Thus Brightness spoke and heard dim earth reply–
‘There is a clearness more silver than the dew,
Within the questing thought it builds a fane;
The clear-lit hope untrammelled hearts pursue
Cries in its living colours from behind the faint-washed bow of rain.
Stained with this light from beyond the world I strive
For the hate-unburdened race…..fearless and alive.’
Swift flows the endless river pearled with singing
In the far unshadowed land where wisdom starts;
Through the undefeated sky two white swans winging
Linked with the golden chain no envious corrosion parts.
Heart-held mirror shows the silver dream:
Singing, the tranquil river flows…..white pinions gleam.

‘ARJAVA’

(Suggested in part by two lines from W. B. Yeats’ poem The Withering of the Boughs-
‘I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.’)