Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2019 | Page 135

Blank Verse Ballad
Dulwich College Beijing, Zhou, Jennifer - 16
Come now, my old friends, come. Let us disturb
The stillness of our idle lives. Let us discard
The clocks that count our twilight hours, the bells
Whose ceaseless tolls mete out our dwindling days.
Come, let us beat our feet against the earth
And once more shake the heavens with our voice,
And let us howl with young men’s lungs again
Into the silence where we have grown old.
Let us relive those distant days, my friends—
When we drank deep from life, and not its dregs.
For we have lived much, known much, suffered much
And seen much of the world. Our golden ships
Bore us across the earth and to its ends—
Where boundless mist swallows the land, where wild
Wind moans among the barren trees, where tall
And ancient pillars of the earth hold up
The star-lit sky—and to the shores of men:
The cities where the faithless raise their towers
The jungles where the wild thrust up their spears
Each just as proud, trying to graze the stars.
We set our ships on untamed sea and eyes
On unmapped sky. We thought ourselves heroes:
We who were of one dauntless heart and one
Unconquered mind; we who saw our fates writ
Across the heavens; we who fought, who sought
And saw, who wandered, won, and witnessed all—
We have grown old. Oh, to wander again.
To tread that well-remembered path along
The footsteps of the gods, and once more hear
Among their hushed and hallowed names our own.
Come now, my old friends, come. For though we are
Worn down by time, made fearful by old age,
And heavy with the weight of stagnant dreams,
We stand strong still. Look there, our ship awaits:
The sail is puffed; the oars are raised; the prow
Points to the waves. My faithful companions,
Tis not too late. We can be heroes yet.
The time has come to leap across the gulf
Of years, become once more our former selves.
To see the endless wonders of the sea—
And carve our names upon eternity.