Thou, oh, thou!

Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou

Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!

Music, who by the plangent waves,

Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,

Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,

Touchest reverberant bars

Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;—

Keeping regret and memory awake,

And all the immortal ache

Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days

In retrospection!—now, oh, now,

Interpreter and heart-physician, thou,

Who gazest on the heaven and the hell

Of life, and singest each as well,

Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,

Or thy melodious lips,

This sickness named my soul,

Making it whole,

As is an echo of a chord,

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