No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay;
For Freedom rose in that august array,
Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.
Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,
I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone,
One tragic head that bowed against the sky;
O, in a hush too deep for any tomb
I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone
With his own grief, and his own majesty.