The Secret Key and Other Verses/The Dream Star

by George Essex Evans

THE DREAM STAR

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 sea
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 then
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!