Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/325

 His heart grew faint, and tremblingly he sank

Close by the wayside on a weed-grown bank,

Not far from where a new-raised temple stood,

Sky-roofed, and fragrant with wrought cedar wood.

The morning sun was high; his rays fell hot

On this hap-chosen, dusty, common spot,

On the dry-withered grass and withered man:

That wondrous frame where melody began

Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.

But while he sank far music reached his ear.

He listened until wonder silenced fear

And gladness wonder; for the broadening stream

Of sound advancing was his early dream,

Brought like fulfilment of forgotten prayer;

As if his soul, breathed out upon the air,

Had held the invisible seeds of harmony

Quick with the various strains of life to be.

He listened: the sweet mingled difference

With charm alternate took the meeting sense;

Then bursting like some shield-broad lily red,

Sudden and near the trumpet's notes outspread,

And soon his eyes could see the metal flower.

Shining upturned, out on the morning pour

Its incense audible; could see a train

From out the street slow-winding on the plain

With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries,

While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these

With various throat, or in succession poured,

Or in full volume mingled. But one word

Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall,

As when the multitudes adoring call

On some great name divine, their common soul,

The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole.