And then of an eve in Venice,
And the song of the gondolier,
From the far lagunes replying
To the wingéd lion pier.
And then of the verse of Milton,
And the music heard to rise,
Through the solemn night from angels
Stationed in Paradise.
Thus I said it is with music,
Wheresoe'er at random thrown,
It will seek its own responses,
It is loth to die alone.
Thus I said the poet's music,
Though a lovely native air,
May appeal unto a rhythm
That is native everywhere.
For although in scope of feeling,
Human hearts are far apart,
In the depths of every bosom,
Beats the universal heart;
Beats with wide accordant motion,
And the chimes among the towers
Of the grandest of God's temples
Seem as if they might be ours.
And we grow in such a seeming,
Till indeed we may control
To an echo, our communion
With the good and grand in soul.
As an echo in a valley
May revive a cadence there,
Of a bell that may be swaying
In a lofty Alpine air.
As a screen of tremulous metal,
From the rolling organ tone,
Rings out to a note of the music
That can never be its own.
As an earnest artist ponders
On a study nobly wrought,
Till his fingers gild his canvas
With a touch of the self-same thought.