Text of A Golden Age

That must have been a time of happiness.

The air was mild, the Campsie Fells had vines.

Dirigible parties left soft sky-signs

and bursts of fading music. Who could guess

what they might not accomplish, they had seas

in cities, cities in the sea; their domes

and crowded belvederes hung free, their homes

eagle-high or down among whitewashed quays.

And women sauntered often with linked arms

through night streets, or alone, or danced a maze

with friends. Perhaps it did not last. What lasts?

The bougainvillea millenniums

may come and go, but then in thistle days

a strengthened seed outlives the hardest blasts.

Edwin Morgan (from Sonnets from Scotland)