Are you my own soul's echo, or kindred souls' in pain?
A caravan resounding amid the far-flung plain?
Or some great surging wave that the beach can not restrain?
Each day I find it harder to mint and to refine you.
What can you be that near me there's always your refrain?

You may set young folk laughing, make greybeards shout with mirth.
Or steal the midnight sleep of the one who gives you birth,
Or show stern warriors goals that can match up to their worth.
But only when your rhythms new hearts and hopes uncover
By all men you are heeded and needed on our earth.

Work on and never falter. The whole world needs more light
To use his love to spare himself no man has the right.
With sweat upon your brow you must serve the cause of life.
If any friend's in trouble be there to lend him comfort,
And overcome high heaven, if heaven stands for strife.

Give blind men eyes to see and the dumb a tongue to sing.
Give storms unto the ocean, give desert lands a spring.
Hurl lava from high peaks, spitting flames, let thunder ring.
If words of yours are vital in hearts they'll grow and blossom,
Then from a lovely garden your verses shall take wing.

You are my wide-winged steed in flight thro' years of fire,
You herald of my dawn and the Spring of my desire,
My promise and my vow, my sword that shall not tire.
You outshine constellations, you're higher than all planets,
You red, five-pointed star, shining brighter, ever higher.

1972