Classic Poem

Oh! how sweetly music goes,
Keeping tune and keeping time,
As by sound on sound it flows
All in harmony and rhyme;
In the voice that sweetly sings,
Or in meetly warbling strings,
Or where organs' voices meet,
Mingling sweet and true to time.

Charming seem to hearers nigh
Winsome music's mellow sound;
Clouds that glide before the sky,
Or the wind along the ground,
Or the rook above the tree,
Or the sailing ship at sea,
Or the train that skims the field,
Many wheel'd, as smooth as time.

Fairest youth with comely gait
Steps, like music, smoothly on,
Often seeming come too late,
Or from sight too quickly gone.
But beholding fair things go,
To our joy, or fast or slow,
Oh! we do not hear or see
How may flee our passing time.