On Hearing Triumphant Music.

THAT joyous strain
Wake, wake again!
O’er the dead stillness of my soul it lingers.
Ring out, ring out
The music-shout!
I hear the sounding of thy flying fingers,
And to my soul the harmony
Comes like a freshening sea.

Again, again!
Farewell, dull pain,
Thou heartache, rise not while those harpstrings quiver!
Sad feelings, hence!
I feel a sense
Of a new life come like a rushing river,
Freshening the fountains parched and dry,
That in my spirit lie.

That glorious strain
O, from my brain
I see the shadows flitting like scared ghosts!
A light, a light
Shines in to-night,
O’er the good angels trooping to their posts,—
And the black cloud is rent in twain
Before the ascending strain.

It dies away,—
It would not stay,—
So sweet, so fleeting; yet to me it spake
Strange peace of mind
I could not find,
Before that lofty strain the silence brake.
So let it ever come to me
With an undying harmony.