YES, 1 he is with me now, that blind old man, | |
| Of whom I oft have told thee. I have sought | |
| To save him from the city’s tainted air; | |
| And so from out the streets, whose midnight hush | |
| Is broken by the plague-cart’s bell, while death | 5 |
| With sweeping scythe mows down the grass of life, | |
| I brought him hither. But a few green fields | |
| Divide us, and at morn, and noon, and eve, | |
| We meet as friends familiar, I to hear, | |
| And he to speak. From pale lips eloquent | 10 |
| Flow golden words, and from the treasured store, | |
| Like a wise scribe, he brings forth new and old; | |
| Remembered words of poets and of sage | |
| Float, like a strain of music, to his ears; | |
| And so from out the dark clouds of the night | 15 |
| The moon looks forth upon his lonely path, 2 | |
| And leads him o’er wild moor and dreary waste, | |
| Until the day-star rises. And his joy, | |
| When o’er him comes the breath of new-mown fields, | |
| The fragrance of the eglantine and rose, | 20 |
| Or the rich sweetness which the summer rain | |
| Draws from the bosom of the parchèd earth, | |
| Shines, like a sunbeam o’er that sightless face, | |
| And sound, by some strange mystery of the sense, | |
| Seems half-transmuted into subtler waves, | 25 |
| And tells of form and colour. Not for him | |
| The golden sunset and the roseate dawn; | |
| And yet the breath of morning, and the songs | |
| Of lark that chants his anthems high and clear, | |
| Bring to his soul the brightness and the glow. | 30 |
| He cannot see the lightning’s fiery flash, | |
| But every peal of solemn thunder sweeps | |
| With sudden glory to the inward eye; | |
| And lo! his soul mounts upward to the Throne | |
| Whence issue voices mighty as the surge | 35 |
| Of many waters, and the emerald arch | |
| Spans the wide vault, and thousand angels wait, | |
| Each in his order, or go to and fro, | |
| Serving their Master. So each varying tone, | |
| When the soft breeze, from out the pine-tree tops, | 40 |
| Calls the low murmur as of distant seas, | |
| Or pattering of the raindrops on the eaves | |
| Tells of the spring-tide shower, or babbling brook, | |
| From pebbly depths and shallows in its course, | |
| Makes clearest music,—all alike for him | 45 |
| Are but the notes of one vast symphony | |
| That rises up from Nature to her God; | |
| And each fair scene is present to his thoughts, | |
| As once it was to sight that now is quenched. | |
| But man is more than Nature, and his soul | 50 |
| Soars to yet loftier empyrean heights, | |
| When from the ivory keys the expert’s touch | |
| Creates its wondrous world of melody, | |
| The solemn chants which fill the lofty choir, | |
| The madrigals which speak of youth and joy, | 55 |
| The rushing flood of some o’erflowing strain | |
| That pours unbidden, man’s will powerless | |
| To start, or guide, or check it. This his hands | |
| Work for themselves, and I but sit and hear, | |
| Wrapt in that cloud of music, and borne on | 60 |
| To heights before unknown; and yet my voice, | |
| That too has power to stir the depths of life, | |
| Or ringing out Great Homer’s trumpet tones, | |
| Or following Virgil’s calmer, statelier tread, | |
| Or the dread vision of the Florentine, | 65 |
| Or in our English speech, with psalm and hymn, | |
| And hallelujah, such as Levites sang | |
| Before their God, the Lord of Sabaoth, | |
| Kindling his spirit, till the wind that sweeps | |
| With mighty rushing wakes his soul to hear | 70 |
| The echoes of the anthems of the stars, | |
| The music of the mountain and the flood. * * * * * | |
