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Sound with the ‘cellos’ pleading, passionate strain
The yearning theme, and let the flute reply
In placid melody, while violins complain,
And sob, and sigh,
With muted string;
Then let the oboe half-reluctant sing
Of bliss that trembles on the verge of pain,
While ‘cellos plead and plead again,
With throbbing notes delayed, that would impart
To every urgent tone the beating of the heart.
So runs the andante, making plain
The hopes and fears of love without a word.
Then comes the adagio, with a yielding theme
Through which the violas flow soft as in a dream,
While horns and mild bassoons are heard
In tender tune, that seems to float
Like an enchanted boat
Upon the downward-gliding stream,
Toward the allegro’s wide, bright sea
Of dancing, glittering, blending tone,
Where every instrument is sounding free,
And harps like wedding-chimes are rung, and trumpets blown
Around the barque of love
That rides, with smiling skies above,
A royal galley, many-oared,
Into the happy harbour of the perfect chord.

IX

IRIS

Light to the eye and Music to the ear,–
These are the builders of the bridge that springs
From earth’s dim shore of half-remembered things
To reach the heavenly sphere
Where nothing silent is and nothing dark.
So when I see the rainbow’s arc
Spanning the showery sky, far-off I hear
Music, and every colour sings:
And while the symphony builds up its round
Full sweep of architectural harmony
Above the tide of Time, far, far away I see
A bow of colour in the bow of sound.
Red as the dawn the trumpet rings;
Blue as the sky, the choir of strings
Darkens in double-bass to ocean’s hue,
Rises in violins to noon-tide’s blue,
With threads of quivering light shot through and through;
Green as the mantle that the summer flings
Around the world, the pastoral reeds in tune
Embroider melodies of May and June.
Purer than gold,
Yea, thrice-refined gold,
And richer than the treasures of the mine,
Floods of the human voice divine
Along the arch in choral song are rolled.
So bends the bow complete:
And radiant rapture flows
Across the bridge, so full, so strong, so sweet,
That the uplifted spirit hardly knows
Whether the Music-Light that glows
Within the arch of tones and colours seven,
Is sunset-peace of earth or sunrise-joy of Heaven.

X

SEA AND SHORE

Music, I yield to thee
As swimmer to the sea,
I give my spirit to the flood of song!
Bear me upon thy breast
In rapture and at rest,
Bathe me in pure delight and make me strong;
From strife and struggle bring release,
And draw the waves of passion into tides of peace.

Remembered songs most dear
In living songs I hear,
While blending voices gently swing and sway,
In melodies of love,
Whose mighty currents move
With singing near and singing far away;
Sweet in the glow of morning light,
And sweeter still across the starlit gulf of night.

Music, in thee we float,
And lose the lonely note
Of self in thy celestial-ordered strain,
Until at last we find
The life to love resigned
In harmony of joy restored again;
And songs that cheered our mortal days
Break on the shore of light in endless hymns of praise.

December, 1901–May, 1903–May, 1916.