all of our answers turn out to be true
though journeys start and end in pouring rain
there comes a time to pause and take the view

our knowledge is constrained by what is new
not by the old nor yet by thoughts of gain
all of our answers turn out to be true

since what we've done must constitute a coup
in favour of the honest and the plain
there comes a time to pause and take the view

of all the folk whose minds may yet construe
the simple vision that when we entrain
all of our answers turn out to be true

both to our hearts and to those who are due
the seats of honour and the high domain
there comes a time to pause and take the view

when all is clear and the noon sky full blue
we are redeemed by virtue of our pain
all of our answers turn out to be true
there comes a time to pause and take the view

in what new name are honours to be read
by those who fall along the weary road
bearing the last and most unwanted load
of fear and horror no unblemished head
do we acknowledge all our limbs have bled
leaking the symbols of a hated code
while it was plain that nothing could corrode
either the cover or the weight of dread
but there's a message in the signal flame
as we who watch may come to understand
far past all bearing yet within our care
are those who know the truth is not a game
that all good matter comes within a hand
but must go free to rise up in the air

when all is measured time begins to grate
upon the senses then we have to start
a different sort of journey where the part
that makes our human feeling more than freight
is what's required to set the message straight
not only in the realms of work and art
but so the honest signal might depart
from deep inside to past the furthest gate
not every cloud is signal of new rain
or so we learn from waiting as each night
the sigh of wind brings us no fresh relief
from all our suffering and the hard pain
nor are the killer birds disturbed in flight
nor yet the door secured against the thief

here is a dragon that breathes golden fire
burning a message across the dull sky
telling us all that fate may be a liar

although we are the ones who still aspire
to honour in a world where all seems dry
here is a dragon that breathes golden fire

a vision that combines beauty and ire
reminder that some final truth is nigh
telling us all that fate may be a liar

that in the end both pain and joy are higher
than we expect or might ask to supply
here is a dragon that breathes golden fire

a mark of fear but still it is not dire
there's more above than we know to espy
telling us all that fate may be a liar

that is the burden of the early crier
who warns that those who care will come to die
here is a dragon that breathes golden fire
telling us all that fate may be a liar

if there are ways to measure all the tale
in years of story how the shapes are made
without an edge of humour being frayed
by passing breeze or rough attacking gale
you'd say that we must in this wise assail
the aged creators of the human braid
for all the crimes of their despairing trade
before we mark their effort with a fail
no truths have been discovered by our kind
without an effort to disturb the soil
uproot the weeds and plant a better seed
so that the newer products of keen mind
emergent in the end from bitter toil
can match the urge exactly to the deed

we take the pummel since we have to ride
no need to fumble there’s a ready flow
though words are warmer life retains its glow
both here and where we  see high mountain’s side
wake in new green our hearts no longer hide
from the assertion that they truly know
what is their will we’ve seen the golden blow
after the panic and we share the pride
no worse disaster that we care to mark
in daily news or nightly tale of care
can come so close or make our souls to smart
but what’s important is the end of dark
erasure of the hard weight of despair
from where it lay upon each normal heart

emerging from the freighted dark no thought
but that the sky be clear and hands be filled
with all the needful that your warm hearts willed
when in good daylight the first words were caught
by eager listeners who had been taught
that not all prizes went to those best drilled
in the arcana of the freshly-killed
rather to ones who would account for naught
there is a victory that no one regrets
up in the hills when all the gifts are due
then hunters call and do not comprehend
the plainer meanings and the open sets
though when we have been silenced and review
our final forces we find there’s no end