Whisper,
O wings of the wind!
Sing me your song,
O sea!
Grey is the weary world, and grey is the heart of me!
Into my shadowy heart pierce like the star of old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
Sing me the hope made sure, sing me the heart made strong!
Give me the battle-fire, give me the bugle-song Onward ever and on,
O swift, green bird of the sun;
Ever a vaster goal for the goal that thy wings have won.
Keen with a tireless beat is the rush of thy wings that soar;
But keener, swifter than thee is the vision that flies before.
What though we die forgot and sad for the song unsung!
Fresh from her thousand deaths ever the world is young.
For, ever the dream-world floats, a light on a misty bar,
And ever the grey earth follows the wake of that pilot star;
Follows a spirit ship that bears o’er a spirit
Shadows of thoughts unborn, phantoms of destiny.
Silver the giant sails loom through the amber haze,
And ever the helmsman Hope steers for the halcyon days;
And ever the voices call, out of the golden light,
Into the dreamer’s heart, sad in the lonely night— Call like the ring of steel and thrill as of bugles blown,
Splendours of days to be, flaming in skies unknown.
Deep in the eastern skies glimmers that phantom star;
Dim in the distance dies the surge of the world afar.
Ah, but like broken swords, scattered along the van,
Perish the outpost souls that fall in the march of Man!
Ah, but they die not so; out of their ashes
Flowers of immortal Love spring in the hearts of men!
Wings of the swift green Earth, ever and ever young—This is the whispered word the wind of the morning sung!
This is the rune I heard flung by the ocean old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
