Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TRUTH IN BEAUTY (TO A GIFTED ORGANIST), by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TRUTH IN BEAUTY (TO A GIFTED ORGANIST), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Soothed is my spirit when you touch the keys
Last Line: Starting this broken wave above a sea of melody.
Subject(s): Beauty


SOOTHED is my spirit when you touch the keys,
And, like a cloud, my soul floats far away;
My throbbing fancies throng as dreaming bees
To suck the flowers that spring up when you play—
O, that I thus at last might sip and pass 'mid sweets away!

Whence comes such rapturous pain from simple bars,
Such tender-hurting, joy-bewidow'd sweet?
Such pouring glory—cataract of stars—
Bubbles of beauty bursting at my feet,
Or floating into dreamland streams where Fay and Fancy meet?

The rainbow gleams along that splendid arch
Where from your fingers fall the quiv'ring drops.
And now, sunset; and now the misty march
Of timbrel-twinkling planets, o'er the tops
Of organ-chords, aeolian-peaked, with star-em-blazoned stops.

Above the earth, above the wheeling flight
Of mute, yet clearest pealing minstrelsy—
One glimpse of that which made creation bright.
One glimpse of first love's sun of ecstacy—
Then down to earth where musick'd streams purl with pebbled symphony.

O, thus to live—thus ever, ever live,
Wedded to Art, with handmaid Hope at side,
Crushing her lips with lips that dare to give
The winter tempest for the summer tide—
For sweetest of all weddings yet is that where Art is bride.

O, thus to love, forever, ever love,
Changeless in beauty and star-lived in grace.
To hear but the rustle of her robes above—
To catch the star-beams from her fountained face—
For dearer is Art's finger-kiss than Passion's whole embrace!

O Faith, O Hope—the poet and his sky—
O Joy, O Death—the bondman and the freed—
O Love, you, too, must bow beneath that eye
Where naught of earth, or earthy, hath a breed—
For infant Truth a greater hero is than gray-haired Deed,

Truth which comes in Beauty, as to-night
Comes this sweet Truth in simple harmony—
Calming the quick waves of my soul's affright,
And from the depths of an unsounded sea,
Starting this broken wave above a sea of melody.





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