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.

(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.’)