Through me are blown
Wild whisperings of wind from hills
No sun hath known.
The splendour that Orion spills
On purple space;
The golden loom of Leo's mane;
The scintillance of Vega's face;
Dim unto dark:
And great Arcturus' far refrain
Fades to a silence that is pain,
When, like a lark,
Riseth melodious and strong
That cadence of eternal song.
God is the Piper—I, the reed
Down by the river for His need.
One note in those vast melodies
Waited on me,
Or else the choral companies
Went silently
Complaining to the muted stars:
"What lack we yet that Discord bars
That infinite Processional?"
Or else the seraphim would call:
"Minstrels, your dulcimers let fall
And break the silvern psalteries!"
A little reed—a little reed!
And yet were silence of that song,
Failed I the river's pebbled brim,
Nor trembled never unto him—
The Piper! passing where we throng
Vibrant and ready for His need.
O Miracle!
He who in beauty goeth by
The marches of the meadowy sky,
A-piping on the many reeds
His canticle,
Paused in His playing;
For He found
An under-sound
Failed of the music that He made.
Wild winds went straying,
Like sheep lost on the daisied meads—
Scattered by Discord and afraid,
Lost from the fold
They knew of old.
My God had need
Of one more reed—
Had need of me
To make the perfect harmony.
I am that under-sound,
That needed note.
Eternally the Piper tried
Reed after reed until He found
Me growing by the river-side,
And laughing at the leaves that float
Forever down its burnished tide.
How frail my body is—how frail
And common of its kind;
A reed among a field of reeds
A-tremble to the wind—
The wind that threshes like a flail
Until my body bleeds!
Yet through me such wild music blows
The Piper laughs among the stars.
Know you the Piper? Little scars
Burn on His brow, each shoulder shows
Wounds of a knotted scourge that fell
To hurt Him from the hands of Hell!
Welcome, O Wind!
All hail, O Pain!
One little reed—one little reed,
To fill the Piper's far refrain,
Is broken till its body bleed;
Glad that the Minstrel Lord doth find
A tone of His eternal need.
ALDEBARAN
The minstrel tuned the triple strings—
His harp of many murmurings—
Then on a mighty chord began
A song of bright Aldebaran:
I
Aldebaran, Aldebaran,
One night I saw thee rise
Above the peaks of Ispahan,
Red on those purple skies.
Thou wast a royal ruby stone
Set in a diadem
Of some great god upon his throne,
Whose garment's ample hem
Was margined with the clustered spheres
Beyond a myriad of years.