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HE rises and begins to round, | |
He drops the silver chain of sound | |
Of many links without a break, | |
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, | |
All intervolv’d and spreading wide, | 5 |
Like water-dimples down a tide | |
Where ripple ripple overcurls | |
And eddy into eddy whirls; | |
A press of hurried notes that run | |
So fleet they scarce are more than one, | 10 |
Yet changingly the trills repeat | |
And linger ringing while they fleet, | |
Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear | |
To her beyond the handmaid ear, | |
Who sits beside our inner springs, | 15 |
Too often dry for this he brings, | |
Which seems the very jet of earth | |
At sight of sun, her musci’s mirth, | |
As up he wings the spiral stair, | |
A song of light, and pierces air | 20 |
With fountain ardor, fountain play, | |
To reach the shining tops of day, | |
And drink in everything discern’d | |
An ecstasy to music turn’d, | |
Impell’d by what his happy bill | 25 |
Disperses; drinking, showering still, | |
Unthinking save that he may give | |
His voice the outlet, there to live | |
Renew’d in endless notes of glee, | |
So thirsty of his voice is he, | 30 |
For all to hear and all to know | |
That he is joy, awake, aglow, | |
The tumult of the heart to hear | |
Through pureness filter’d crystal-clear, | |
And know the pleasure sprinkled bright | 35 |
By simple singing of delight, | |
Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain’d, | |
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain’d | |
Without a break, without a fall, | |
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, | 40 |
Perennial, quavering up the chord | |
Like myriad dews of sunny sward | |
That trembling into fulness shine, | |
And sparkle dropping argentine; | |
Such wooing as the ear receives | 45 |
From zephyr caught in choric leaves | |
Of aspens when their chattering net | |
Is flush’d to white with shivers wet; | |
And such the water-spirit’s chime | |
On mountain heights in morning’s prime, | 50 |
Too freshly sweet to seem excess, | |
Too animate to need a stress; | |
But wider over many heads | |
The starry voice ascending spreads, | |
Awakening, as it waxes thin, | 55 |
The best in us to him akin; | |
And every face to watch him rais’d, | |
Puts on the light of children prais’d, | |
So rich our human pleasure ripes | |
When sweetness on sincereness pipes, | 60 |
Though nought be promis’d from the seas, | |
But only a soft-ruffling breeze | |
Sweep glittering on a still content, | |
Serenity in ravishment. | |
|
For singing till his heaven fills, | 65 |
’T is love of earth that he instils, | |
And ever winging up and up, | |
Our valley is his golden cup, | |
And he the wine which overflows | |
To lift us with him as he goes: | 70 |
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine | |
He is, the hills, the human line, | |
The meadows green, the fallows brown, | |
The dreams of labor in the town; | |
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins; | 75 |
The wedding song of sun and rains | |
He is, the dance of children, thanks | |
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks, | |
And eye of violets while they breathe; | |
All these the circling song will wreathe, | 80 |
And you shall hear the herb and tree, | |
The better heart of men shall see, | |
Shall feel celestially, as long | |
As you crave nothing save the song. | |
Was never voice of ours could say | 85 |
Our inmost in the sweetest way, | |
Like yonder voice aloft, and link | |
All hearers in the song they drink: | |
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood, | |
Our passion is too full in flood, | 90 |
We want the key of his wild note | |
Of truthful in a tuneful throat, | |
The song seraphically free | |
Of taint of personality, | |
So pure that it salutes the suns | 95 |
The voice of one for millions, | |
In whom the millions rejoice | |
For giving their one spirit voice. | |
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Yet men have we, whom we revere, | |
Now names, and men still housing here, | 100 |
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint | |
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint, | |
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet | |
For song our highest heaven to greet: | |
Whom heavenly singing gives us new, | 105 |
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue, | |
From firmest base to farthest leap, | |
Because their love of Earth is deep, | |
And they are warriors in accord | |
With life to serve and pass reward, | 110 |
So touching purest and so heard | |
In the brain’s reflex of yon bird; | |
Wherefore their soul in me, or mine, | |
Through self-forgetfulness divine, | |
In them, that song aloft maintains, | 115 |
To fill the sky and thrill the plains | |
With showerings drawn from human stores, | |
As he to silence nearer soars, | |
Extends the world at wings and dome, | |
More spacious making more our home, | 120 |
Till lost on his aƫrial rings | |
In light, and then the fancy sings. | |
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