Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LYRA MYSTICA, by THOMAS WALSH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LYRA MYSTICA, by                    
First Line: Song, since thou wilt not grasp
Last Line: That fail'st us never, lead thy minstrels on.
Alternate Author Name(s): Gill, Roderick; Strange, Garrett
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


Song, since thou wilt not grasp
One solid chord of all
The harp-strung universe, nor clasp
A human breast, nor on a brow let fall
One kiss of warmth, nor give responding strain
To aught but echoes back thine own refrain --
Since else seems fruitless, since the asp
Rifles the flower life holds
And 'gainst us darts its glittering head
Of failure -- sweep us in thy velvet folds
Of leaves that fall, thy music round us bring
With throb unmeasured, and the words unsaid,
Till that with thee we sing --
Thyself, the all and none,
The unseen divinely fair,
Attained in unattaining -- glad despair
And maimed victory against the sun.

'Tis thou alone couldst call
The atom and the star remote
To be unto eternity --
Voice of Cumaea's sibyl, golden throat
Of Patmos, singing in the sparrow's fall,
In hissing sands against the Sphinx's brow,
In dawns on Parthenon,
Or in the gluttonous caverns of the sea --
Song of eternal azure, thou
That fail'st us never, lead thy minstrels on.





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