Music

There is music, deep and solemn
Floating through the vaulted arch
When, in many an angry column,
Clouds take up their stormy march:
O’er the ocean billows, heaping
Mountains on the sloping sands,
There are ever wildly sweeping
Shapeless and invisible hands.

Echoes full of truth and feeling
From the olden bards sublime,
Are, like spirits, brightly stealing
Through the broken walls of time.
The universe, that glorious palace,
Thrills and trembles as they float,
Like the little blossom’s chalice
With the humming of the mote.

On the air, as birds in meadows—
Sweet embodiments of song—
Leave their bright fantastic shadows
Trailing goldenly along.
Till, aside our armor laying,
We like prisoners depart,
In the soul is music playing
To the beating of the heart.

Alice Cary