Music, the guest, to enter and abide,
Death laid his hand, and with insistence strong
Shut in the secret of their power of song,—
That the dear voice, thus sadly dispossessed
And reft of home, sped forth upon its road,
And like a lost and lonely child, in quest
Of shelter, sought another warm abode
In human shape,—some gentle, new-born thing,
Where it might fold its torn and beaten wing.
And if, long years from now, we catch a strain