Yea, thrice-refined gold,
And richer than the treasures of the mine,
Floods of the human voice divine
Along the arch in choral song are rolled.
So bends the bow complete:
And radiant rapture flows
Across the bridge, so full, so strong, so sweet,
That the uplifted spirit hardly knows
Whether the Music-Light that glows
Within the arch of tones and colours seven,
Is sunset-peace of earth or sunrise-joy of Heaven.

X

SEA AND SHORE

Music, I yield to thee
As swimmer to the sea,
I give my spirit to the flood of song!
Bear me upon thy breast
In rapture and at rest,
Bathe me in pure delight and make me strong;
From strife and struggle bring release,
And draw the waves of passion into tides of peace.

Remembered songs most dear
In living songs I hear,
While blending voices gently swing and sway,
In melodies of love,
Whose mighty currents move
With singing near and singing far away;
Sweet in the glow of morning light,
And sweeter still across the starlit gulf of night.

Music, in thee we float,
And lose the lonely note
Of self in thy celestial-ordered strain,
Until at last we find
The life to love resigned
In harmony of joy restored again;
And songs that cheered our mortal days
Break on the shore of light in endless hymns of praise.

December, 1901--May, 1903--May, 1916.

MASTER OF MUSIC

(In memory of Theodore Thomas, 1905)

Glory architect, glory of painter, and sculptor, and bard,
Living forever in temple and picture and statue and song,--
Look how the world with the lights that they lit is illumined and
starred;
Brief was the flame of their life, but the lamps of their art burn
long!

Where is the Master of Music, and how has he vanished away?
Where is the work that he wrought with his wonderful art in the air?
Gone,--it is gone like the glow on the cloud at the close of the day!
The Master has finished his work and the glory of music is--where?

Once, at the wave of his wand, all the billows of musical sound
Followed his will, as the sea was ruled by the prophet of old:
Now that his hand is relaxed, and his rod has dropped to the ground,
Silent and dark are the shores where the marvellous harmonies rolled!

Nay, but