Grey Areas

There is a world where no more angels go
Where armoured hearts beat out the passing years
Confident in nothing, bold in dismay;
Here are the ashes of our yesterday,
Here are the echos of our fallen tears,
Here is the valley of eternal snow.

And yet one scents the iron in the frost,
One hears the distant horn of Roland lost;
And though the sun has swept its circle out
These many ages clouded here in doubt

There are still kings beneath the silted dross.
A tarnished helm, a chapel in the moss -
Now here and there, the light of dawn returns;
And in the ashen hearth, a fire burns.