SIMPLE SOUNDS by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES

O POWER! whose organ is the tremulous air,
Thou that not only to the accordant sense
Unfoldest all a world of harsh and fair,
But hast a far diviner influence,
Submitting to inscrutable controul
The finest elements of human soul;

O mystic Sound! what heart can keep aloof,
If summoned to acknowledge thy bland sway,
As thou approachest in the golden woof
Of luscious harmonies serene or gay?
But thou hast moods I would not honor less,
Thy simplest forms of moral kingliness.

How did my childish ecstasy burst out,
When first I found thy Echoes at my call!
What blithe caprice of whisper, song, and shout,
Woke the steep hill and challenged the long wall!
How we @3did@1 laugh! I needed from that day
Nor other playfellows nor other play.

Further in life, when thoughts and feelings slept
In my heart's tomb, some one particular tone
Of common bells has stung me till I wept,
And rushed away, oppressed by things foregone;
For though the hours recalled be bright and glad,
Still earnest memory ever will be sad.

When late I changed the still unpeopled air
Of the clear South for this my mother clime,
I quivered with delight, as everywhere
Sweet birds in happy snatches hailed the prime;
A throstle's twitter made old walks arise,
With lilac-bunches dancing in my eyes.

What love we, about those we love the best,
Better than their dear voices? At what cost
Would one not gather to an aching breast
Each little word of some whom we have lost?
And oh! how blank to hear, in some far place,
A voice we know, and see a stranger's face.

I never hold my truth to God more leal
Than when it thunders; that monotonous roll
Has after-lightning potent to reveal
Many dark words on Faith's sin-shaded scroll:
Talk with a stormy sky, man! prone to deem
That nothing @3is,@1 because of thine own Dream.

And now within the hush of evening waves,
Cast by light force upon a shingly shore,
My Spirit rests; the ruins and fresh graves
That strewed its earthly path here vex no more:
Rocked on the soothing surge, its life is all
One soft attraction and one mellow fall.

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