William Channing Gannett (1840–1923)

IT sounds along the ages,

Soul answering to soul;

It kindles on the pages

Of every Bible scroll;

The psalmists heard and sang it,

From martyr-lips it broke,

And prophet-tongues outrang it

Till sleeping nations woke.

From Sinai’s cliffs it echoed,

It breathed from Buddha’s tree,

It charmed in Athens’ market,

It gladdened Galilee;

The hammer-stroke of Luther,

The Pilgrims’ seaside prayer,

The oracles of Concord,

One holy Word declare.

It dates each new ideal,—

Itself it knows not time:

Man’s laws but catch the music

Of its eternal chime.

It calls—and lo, new Justice!

It speaks—and lo, new Truth!

In ever nobler stature

And unexhausted youth.

It everywhere arriveth;

Recks not of small and great;

It shapes the unborn atom,

It tells the sun its fate.

The wingbeat of archangel

Its boundary never nears:

Forever on it soundeth

The music of the spheres!