THE MUSICIAN AND THE ORGAN. 171 Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better perchance is this your comfort to me? To me who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the in effable Name? Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same? Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands ? There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in heaven, a perfect round. 172 THE MUSICIAN AND THE ORGAN. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by-and-by. And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence ? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized? THE MUSICIAN AND THE ORGAN. 173 Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know. Well it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign; I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor, yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep. ROBERT BROWNING. THE SONG OF NIGHT. COME to thee, O Earth! With all my gifts:-for every flower sweet dew, In bell, and urn, and chalice, to renew The glory of its birth. Not one which glimmering lies Far amidst folding hills or forest leaves, But, through its veins of beauty, so receives I come with every star: Making thy streams, that on their noon-day track Gave but the moss, the reed, the lily back, Mirrors of Worlds afar. THE SONG OF NIGHT. 175 I come with peace; I shed Sleep through thy wood-walks o'er the honey-bee, The lark's triumphant voice, the fawn's young glee, The hyacinth's meek head. On my own heart I lay The weary babe, and, sealing with a breath I come with mightier things! Who calls me silent? I have many tones- I waft them not alone · From the deep organ of the forest shades, Or buried streams, unheard amidst their glades, But in the human breast A thousand still small voices I awake, Strong in their sweetness from the soul to shake The mantle of its rest. |