Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/75

Rh E'en his song left unsung had more power than the note ye prolong,

And one sweep of his harp-strings outpassioned the hight of your song.

VI

But a sound like the voice of the pine, like the roar of the sea

Arises. He breathes now; he sings; O, again he is free.

He has flung from his flesh, from his spirit, their shackles accurst,

And he pours all his heart, all his life, in one passionate burst.

VII

And now as he chants those who listen turn pale, are afraid;

For he sings of a God that made all, and is all that was made;

Who is maker of love, and of hate, and of peace, and of strife;

Smiles a heaven into being; frowns a hell, that yet thrills with His life.

VIII

And he sings of the time that shall be when the earth is grown old;

Of the day when the sun shall be withered, and shrunken, and cold;

When the stars, and the moon, and the sun,—all their glory o'erpast,—

Like apples that shrivel and rot, shall drop into the Vast.