THIS was not music. Music is but notes Crawling like ants across the crumpled page. But this was flowers, February's daring buds Confronting Winter's rage. This was not music, a tense repeated tapping, Hammer on wire: this was the wind stepping From hill to green-furred hill. This was a wood, taking the wind's loud crash; Or clouds, high-riding the west hemisphere. This was not music's hoarse laborious drone That speaks but to the ear. —No, this was water down a steep cliff falling Perpetually—falling, leaping and falling Down cliffs steep, dark and chill. Here were the waters of the seas upgathered In one Hand archangelic, caught and furled A moment in a cloud, then slowly loosed Upon the hushing world; Then in a snare of sunny channels caught, To purge the pestilence of mortal thought, And fears of mortal ill. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SICILIAN EMIGRANT'S SONG by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS NURSE'S SONG, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE COMRADE JESUS by SARAH NORCLIFFE CLEGHORN THE FLAMING HEART by RICHARD CRASHAW MARY'S LAMB by SARAH JOSEPHA BUELL HALE THE FAIRIES OF THE CALDON LOW; A MIDSUMMER LEGEND by MARY HOWITT |