GOLDEN SYMPHONY

Seen from afar, the city

To-day is like a golden cloud:

Strayed from the sky and moulded

Into dim motionless towers.

Music is passing far off:

Music serenely

Is climbing up and vanishing

On the long grey stairways of the sky,

In fanlike rays of light.

Now it falls slowly,

Careering, toppling,

Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom,

Golden cascades.

Peace: now let the music

Sound from further away,

Red bells out of memory's

Blue dream of regret.

Seen from afar, the city

To-day is like a fleet of sails:

Breaking the foam of dark forests,

In which I have strayed so long.

They march together slowly,

The golden temple terraces,

Against the dark remembrance

Of my pools of despair.

The gates of the city lie open,

And the whole world goes homeward,

Full-pulsing bells in the foreground,

Catching my soul with them

On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky.