"They are drawn so tight they will break asunder,"
I thought, but instead, they grew,
In the hands of the Master, firmer and stronger;
And I could hear on the stilly air--
Now my ears were deafened by Mirth no longer--
The sounds of sorrow, and grief, and despair,
And my soul grew tender and kind to others;
My nature grew sweeter, my mind grew broad;
And I held all men to be my brothers,
Linked by the chastening rod.
My soul was lifted to God and heaven,
And when on my heart-strings fell again
The hands of Mirth and Pleasure, even,
There was never a discord to mar the strain.
For Pain, the musician, the soul-refiner,
Attuned the strings with a Master hand,
And whether the music be major or minor,
It is always sweet and grand.
1872
[IN VAIN]
The artist looks down on his canvass,
And smothers a heart-weary sigh,
And he sees not the beautiful picture
That glows with the hues of the sky.
For a picture that cannot be painted
Burns into the artist's brain,
And he weeps as he sits at his easel,
And sobs through his sorrow, "In vain."
The poet reads over his poem,
The thoughts of a Heaven-lent soul--
And sweet as the ripple of waters
The beautiful sentences roll.
But a poem that cannot be written,
Burns into the poet's brain,
And he weeps in a passion of anguish,
And sobs through his sorrow, "In vain."
The musician sits at his organ,
And the air echoes sweet melodies.
But his heart cries for sounds that are better
Than the sounds that he draws from the keys.
For a chord that has never been sounded--
A passionate,--ecstatic strain.
And he weeps as he sits at the organ,
And sobs through his sorrow, "In vain."
Oh, Artist, Musician and Poet!
Three souls that were lent to the earth
To brighten with fingers of beauty
This bare, barren planet of dearth!
You dream of the glories of Heaven,
And vainly are striving to show
To the gaze of the clay-fettered mortals,
The things that no mortal shall know.
1871