Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MUSIC OF THE PINES, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MUSIC OF THE PINES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Far away, like fairy bugles, when the shades
Last Line: Like the music that I ne'er shall hear again from out the pines.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


FAR away, like fairy bugles, when the shades of night are on,
Comes again the memory-music of my childhood days agone, agone,
Comes again the sheen of hillside where the long-leaf needles lay,
And the spots of softened sunshine flecking through the latticed way,
Come again the distant echoes of my playmates from their shrines,
And they come with elfin music, with the music of the pines,
With the misty, memory-music of the band among the pines.

Once again their half-heard laughter floats from out the past to rise
As an echo from hereafter in that playground 'mid the skies;
Once again the resinous odors through my dreaming senses spread
As the frankincense from flowers that we buried with our dead,
And I stop my work to listen to the bells in memory's mines,
Tinkling on the swelling hillside to the music of the pines,
To the half-heard, half-dreamt music of the band among the pines.

Now I see the yellow sunlight sifted through the sieve of spears,
And I hear the zephyr lullabies of long forgotten years.
How the band above me thunders as the swaying tree tops shake!
And now it falls as calmly sweet as starlight on a lake.
And as the passing pinions sweep above in lilting lines,
I almost see the angels in that band among the pines,
See the angels as they sing and swing amid the swaying pines.

O, how often in the glory of the days forever gone,
I have drunk the crooning story of that mimic Alpine horn.
There's a solace in its soughing that no earthly music brings,
There's a cadence in its wooing never heard in court of kings,
There's a rhythm in the rustle of its low enchanting lines,
For heaven's sweetest zephyrs made the music of the pines,
Swept the lyre of lyric needles in that band among the pines.

I have heard the martial music of a conquering army come
With the blare of boastful bugle and the thunder of the drum.
I have mused upon the measures of a sweet Italian band
Till my reeling spirit wandered as a bird in Edenland;
But there is no earthly music e'er conceived in mortal minds
Like the music of my childhood in the band among the pines,
Like the music that I ne'er shall hear again from out the pines.





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