Page:The Soul of a Century.djvu/134

  When did you strike the keys, that over the keyboards’ snow Quivered beneath your fingers like the waves on a moonlit plain? And then you played of my life, of the evening’s tender glow, Romance, of dreams, denials and disdain. In your music my hour’s slumbering choir came to life And melted through the stillness, as an angelus of silver bells Even my blood’s refrain poured in my veins through the rhythmic strife Of joyous youth, as if accented by my laughter’s riotous spells.

The pain of burnt desires smouldered beneath your song In solemn requiem’s cadences fell as tears And a longing for the Highest fell to the ripened ground As dew drops fall in sparkling golden streaks. Time inhaled, a feeble scent, stirred by your music’s might In grapes of foreign wines it settled beneath your tone’s impact, While the glory of bygone suns, and the splendor of a starry night Were mirrored in your rhythm’s pitch black cataract.

Then with your strings’ vibrations you touched the mystic strain ’Til through excessive quivers it flared into a bluish light Of a flaming haze But your music reached in vain With the Unknown’s voice of might. My listening mortal ear Where the stillness vaulted and wept My soul’s soft, deadened sighs, and grief in speechless forms! Like a scent of offerings, to the angels’ windows crept, The sorrows of future days the ozones of coming storms