And all color but a finer sound,

 Beauty, but the reach of lyric freedom,

 Caught and quivering past all music’s bound;

 Life, that faint sigh whispered from oblivion,

 Harks and wonders if we may not be

 Five small wits to carry one great rhythmus,

 The vast theme of God’s new symphony.

 As fine sand spread on a disc of silver,

 At some chord which bids the motes combine,

 Heeding the hidden and reverberant impulse,

 Shifts and dances into curve and line,

 The round earth, too, haply, like a dust-mote,

 Was set whirling her assigned sure way,

 Round this little orb of her ecliptic

 To some harmony she must obey.

 Did the Master try the taut string merely,

 Give a touch, and she must throb to time?

 Think you how his bow must rouse the echoes,

 Quailing triumphing on, secure, sublime!

68

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