Beyond
Beyond the flood of sunlight on this sea,
Beyond the horizon line,
Beyond those outer and unknown horizons
Into horizonless and glorious landscapes of the soul
take wing, take wing; outward go singing.
Not as stark men upon a drowning deckOr on a berserk salient doomed;
Not as wind-driven wingers crying,
Nor lowing as lost ones from flocks;
Not as the hermit in his cold cell chaunting-
Not these, not these, but the light-throated,
Sun-carolling of the joyous defiant,
The darer in the air, the plunger in the waters.
Pass over mountains;Your cadenzas cascading, echoing, re-echoing,
Shall strain dark cataracted eyes
From cabbage beds, from the damp potato ground:
They blinking in the sun shall remember their youth,
Their glory gone to the midden of years,
Their spearheads rusting.
O, from your eyrie wash them with songLike sunlight flooding, pouring through doors,
Through last slow closing shutters of the soul.
Wake them to pain, to laughter and to loveliness again;
From the dark vats of grief this century cooling,
Drench them again like rain.
Go on, O singing man!There are the eagles the great-winged before you
Reigning in sunlight, the hawks and swallows:
O join them soaring beyond and beyond
Over limitless landscapes!
- Eric Roach, The Flowering Rock: Collected Poems 1938-1974
