Because you have come between us and a time
When solid kingdoms tumble like niagaras,
When treason lands accoutred in the garden,
And even the holy sky is raining arsenals,
Because you have come, half child and angel, wiser
Than we and watcher beyond the stormy mountains,
Builders of skyways out of the world, where riders
Spur unconcerned up the sheer heaven we doubt,
Down in dark thunder of the lit ore sailing,
Because your perfect, aloof, and midair music,
Though with sad eye on earth, is like the shining
Of dancers with bent brow and slow arm luminous
In the greygreen air, in the wind that stirs
Fallen lapels and ribands and lost helmets,
Because you are this, a stairway and white passers
Out of peeled regions with no god apparent,
We urge that height, whose seven choirs you echo
Even in days blown bare of song and children,
To favor, singer and child, your spirit always.
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