Have you not noticed, standing in the aisles
Of some high-vaulted temple when the massed
And reverent throngs were hushed in expectation,
How a great organ poured forth like a flood
Its spell of music as the master's hands
Swept the wide boards? What power over the soul
To lift its hopes, to plant its aspirations
In the rich soil of heaven came from the touch!
But let untutored fingers meet the keys,
And the rapt ear is split by harsh discords.
Are not the strings, the instrument, the same
With either press? But how extremes depend
Upon the craft of him who plays. Life's songs
From baser jars and fretted failures range
Along the gamut of their enterprise,
In spiral movement to such high refrains
As could, with buoyant amplitude of roll,
Lift up the souls of sinking men, and float
The world's grey cares on seas of evening-calm...
Have you not heard such music when the winds
Are given boundless space wherein to blow
Upon the greenness of the earth? They pass,
And from the meadows and the valley-slopes
The latent rhythms of the daisies blend
With the low rustle of the sedge. They pass
Again, and lo, in grander orchestra,
The pines lift up their voices on the hills.
A blade of grass, a daisy or a pine,
A wave, a waterfall, a heart-string, these,
Tuned to the world's blood rhythms, now await.
As cords you touch, as reeds you breathe upon,
The rising pulses of the morning air.