To this he adds as a quotation the passage itself:—
“The souls which are near without knowing it, and which can approach no nearer by ever so close an embrace than they eternally are, pine for a blending which can never be theirs so long as they remain distinct individuals.”
The song itself, which he thought, as I did, his high-water mark, here follows. Its closing verse appears to me unsurpassed in American literature.
STANZAS FOR MUSIC
(From an Unfinished Drama)
Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word;
Close, close in my arms thou art clinging;
Alone for my ear thou art singing
A song which no stranger hath heard: