Virtue from Afar

            How fair is virtue from afar,
            in whose eyes the light of a northern star
            beckons us not to sleep,
            but to keep
            the shutters of our eyes thrown wide,
            to heed the spray of the rising tide,
            to spread our arms to the misty Heaven,
            whence comes the rain so mercifully given.
            So now we see those galaxies,
            a thousand eyes in a thousand seas,
            a darkness broken, a flood of light
            through clouds whose shadows dance o'er the night.
            Afar, afar, the misty dreams,
            while here on Earth, our small life seems
            devoid of virtue, fair and true,
            but in this truth, a virtue, too.