Classic Poem

(On hearing him play)

The web of day was woven. Lang'rous Nature
Leaned on the breast of Night;
The moon was mounting to meridian splendour —
A shield of silver bright.
Before the dimly-lighted clavier, dreaming,
Thrilled with eternal peace,
The master bowed his head one voiceless moment
Awaiting full release.
Then suddenly swept down the great-winged silence
One massive chord sublime
That shook the night with solemn diapason
And strange concordant chime.
The triton-blast was heard across the billows;
The norns on tiptoe ran;
Along the rippling silver-crested moonbeams,
I heard the pipes of Pan.

In accents of the whispering forests breathing,
In thunders of the sea,
Its cadence told of unimagined eras
And nations yet to be.
It brought new springtime to the earth, concealing
With flowers the winter's scars;
It piped in bird-lilts to the heavens, distilling
The healing of the stars.
The choral voices met, embraced and blended
In one stupendous whole,
Revealing in their mystic power and beauty,
The legend of the soul.

Too soon it ceased. The race of matchless music
And mighty chords was run;
The stars of God had meanwhile slowly mounted
To highways of the sun.
Along the south, red Cyclops, blazing yonder,
Glared with his scorpion eye,
The only sound, a lonely night-bird calling
Across great gulfs of sky.