To See Dragons Fly

What was a rock lying on a white hill
Becomes all at once a white dragon. Still,
We know that such things as we glimpse in cloud
Cannot be really made the world, if we are proud.

We know that we cannot deceive ourselves,
That just because in the woodwork we see fays and elves
Does not mean that they are really there. We turn away.
We must, to devote ourselves to proud workings of day.

But without cloud-horses stamping the sky,
The days would not seem so light, nor fly by.
If only because we must sometimes doubt the rational gaze,
We find a way to balance the two kinds of living days.

We dwell most of the time in this world of ours,
Where we know that blooms are not symbols, just flowers.
This is the substance of life that makes up the bulk of memory,
When we live in the world, and are happy, and say what we see.

But lost in those days are the bright moments when
Something of brighter truth visits the world of men.
Surely if we see the white stone most days, clouds in the sky,
It is all right at times to see horses, or even to see dragons fly?