BECAUSE we dare behold the sun With eyes unshaken, unafraid, And watch the swinging stars go on Across their sombre bridge of shade, Because for us the singing birds Are voices of a world unseen, Because all sounds are singing words With golden melody between, Because for us the winter wind Is our own cry of warning sent Across the world made dark and blind And grown a-cold with long lament, Because the chill grey heights are ours And ours the flame-encircled deep, The striving souls of trees and flowers, The calling visions of our sleep, Therefore for us no ashen pyres Fall grey with self-consuming heat, But in our heart the quenchless fires Of strength and aspiration meet. Therefore for us still burns the gleam Caught from the beacons of the Spring, And in our eyes still sleeps the dream Of an unguessed awakening. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTERRACIAL by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ELEGY: THE GHOST WHOSE LIPS WERE WARM; FOR GEOFFREY GORER by EDITH SITWELL FAREWELL, UNKIST by THOMAS WYATT THE DOUBLE STANDARD by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE UNFORGIVEN by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |