Primal Music

LUNA! Life is very holy

   To the spirit who reveres

   God, in all its smiles and tears,

Triumphs proud and trials lowly :-

But it is a melancholy

   Way, for one whose heavy ears

   Are so earthly-dull, he hears

No sweet melody o'ertopping

   The discordant clang of wrong,

Chiming like the dewy dropping

   Of an angel's shower of song.

Listen silently and long,

   Luna, till thy soul hath captured

Notes of the triumphal song

   By which all the golden spheres,

   Wheeling their eternal years,

        Make the crystal heavens enraptured,

And the blessed tune shall be

A well-spring of Melody,

Springing up to joy in thee;

    Or a chain of charmed sweetness

Holding, with a prevalent awe,

Thy whole nature to the law

Of Life-Music, which shall draw

   Deeds instinct with its completeness

Out of every thought and motion,

Till thy whole Life is Devotion.

   Music, borne to tongue or string,

From the daily pulse must leap,

   All our common breath should sing,

   And our steps unfaltering

Time with Angel-citherns keep.