Classic Poem

Soar again, young eagle, soar again —
Leave carrion to vultures! — soar above
The blazing precipices of the sun,
The huddled glaciers of the arctic moon;
Soar, soar and scatter with ascending wing
The swirling hailstones of the fierce, white stars.

Soar again, young eagle, soar above
Those jagged turrets and sky-tossing peaks
Where, in the dawn of time, the Dragon died:
The monstrous Dragon, whose stupendous ribs —
Now fused inveterately with earth and rock
In corrugations multitudinous —
Remain a spectacle of beauty and of awe.

Soar again, young eagle, soar above
The vast expanses of that silent sea,
Whose shallow waters are grey scrub, whose foam
Is shifting sand: here drowns the sun in floods
Of orange and of gold, of purple pomp
That pales to violet ere the stains of day
Are washed out by the waters of the moon.