Not broken yet, this mirror of the morning,
The heart-shaped polished nephrite of the sea.
Oh, mirror of mornings, shield of steely twilights!
Cannot your look assuage and counsel me?
Dancers of the day press on, let fall their veils,
Rose burning on the circles of the waters,
No question blinds their upturned faces,
Never a green life shirring in the thickets
But knows some keyword, that its life is spent,
Death-dogged and secret, and a flash of wings,
But not perverse; not wholly malcontent.
And Pani holds aloft the beaded maize,
And tilts her jewelled basket of the moon
For all but him whose hopes ride out too far
On great white horses, in a nameless noon.
Shall none behold thee but the goddess daughters
Who look again and see themselves new-fair,
And burn across the skies, and light a morning
With the heavy candelabra of their hair?
Robin Hyde
Madhuban - New Zealand 