Page:Poems Kennedy.djvu/36

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FLYING
AH, heart of mine, if I could but fly
Up under the cup of the bending sky,
And drift and drive and soar and dip
Like a wingéd thing in a great air ship,
  I know what I would do.

I'd speed to the east o'er the cobalt blue
And find the gap where the day breaks through,
And 'neath Aurora's golden wand
I'd peep to see what lay beyond
  That dim, uncharted space.

Then I'd tack away o'er the night's black bars
And the story learn of sentinel stars;
And, passing by in a splendid gale,
The surly Man-in-the-Moon I'd hail
  As an old, familiar friend.

In the veering winds where the pale mists crowd
I'd bump right into the rose-hued cloud
On which the cherubs lean to see
The world and its far mystery—
  The cherubs the artists love.

And the trophies I'd bring from my daring flight?
A ribbon of mist where the day breaks white,
The Moon-Man's name—an unknown thing—
A feather plucked from a seraph's wing,
  And the secrets of all the skies.

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