Page:The Dream of Pythagoras and Other Poems.djvu/38

 There first my soul drank music, and was taught

That melody is part of heaven, and lives

In every heaven-bom spirit like her breath;

There did I learn, that music without end

Breathes, murmurs, swells, echoes, and floats, and peals,

And thunders through creation, and in truth

Is the celestial language, and the voice

Of love; and now my soul began to speak

The speech of immortality. But yet

I was to learn a lesson more severe —

To shine alone in darkness, and the deeps

Of sordid earth. So did I fall from heaven

Far into night, beneath the mountains' roots,

There, as a diamond burning, amidst things

Too base for utterance. Then, alas! I felt

The stirrings of impatience, pining sore

For freedom, and communion with the fires

And majesties of heaven, with whom erewhile

I walk'd their equal. I had not yet learn'd

That our appointed place is loftiest,

However lowly. I was made to feel

The dignity of suffering. 0, my sons!

Sorrow and joy are but the spirit's life.

Without these she is scarcely animate;