Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/317

 Showed but the unchanged world of yesterday;

Where all the order of his dream divine

Lay like Olympian forms within the mine;

Where fervor that could fill the earthly round

With throngéd joys of form-begotten sound

Must shrink intense within the patient power

That lonely labors through the niggard hour.

Such patience have the heroes who begin,

Sailing the first to lands which others win.

Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,

Strike form's first way in matter rude and bare,

And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous quire

Of the world's harvest, make one poor small lyre.

He made it, and from out its measured frame

Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came

With guidance sweet and lessons of delight

Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right,

Where strictest law is gladness to the sense

And all desire bends toward obedience.

Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song—

The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong

As radiance streams from smallest things that burn,

Or thought of loving into love doth turn.

And still his lyre gave companionship

In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip.

Alone amid the hills at first he tried

His wingéd song; then with adoring pride

And bridegroom's joy at leading forth his bride,

He said, "This wonder which my soul hath found,

This heart of music in the might of sound,

Shall forthwith be the share of all our race

And like the morning gladden common space:

The song shall spread and swell as rivers do,

And I will teach our youth with skill to woo