Paean, No.2

High above the town beside the water,

In night as clear as cold, and all in hush,

My inner silence comes once more in glimpses,

From long and lonely years of inner tumult. 

And overhead, the sky bedecked with stars,

Their gentle glow beams down, as from a wish

From some forgotten friend who never left me,

Though he of greatest confidence betrayed. 

An inner world returns, so long forgotten,

Pushed out by darkness of another's making,

And tears and wretched sighs fade ever back

Into the furthest reaches of the night. 

A gentle breeze bears with it distant echoes

Of some forgotten tintinnabulation, 

A peal of bells that sounds the coming age,

More wondrous than before, from former darkness. 

And freedom rings throughout the nighttime valley,

From him who laid me low and cast me off,

And evermore through gathering light of dawn,

The anthem of the morning rings aloud. 

Let freedom ring henceforth from ancient towers

That sat long silent on their lonely hills,

Let some new age reign then within my heart,

No longer touched by darkness he must bear. 

16/10/18