ASPIRATION by CONDE BENOIST PALLEN

I can strike the minor chord and sing;—
Is the major chord denied?
I would sing with the sun, and chime with the moon
As it sways the heaving tide.

I would ride upon the neck of the blast
Grasping the mane of the rack,
When the snorting thunder plashes his hoof
In the lightning's ragged track.

Or where the battle thunders its bruit,
There let the spirit pant,
When death and victory mingle their note
In one triumphal chant.

I would mount to the topmost peak and ken
With an eagle's sight afar,
Swoop to the depths and up again
Across the path of a star.

Where myriad suns commingling blaze
In the marge of farthermost space,
And system in system clangorous rolls
Athwart the abyss's face,

Let my soul drink in the rushing song
Of a thousand worlds in one,
The music of time forever dying
And time forever begun.

On the wings of morning let me rise,
On the plumes of evening fall,
With the orient clang at the gates of sleep.
With evening unfold her pall;

And with the course of the chariot sun,
Let me follow the life of man,
With the eye of heaven looking upon
The great and the little plan.

For I would sing as an Angel might chant
Of all that he sees below,
When he gazes down on the whirling globe
With its human ebb and flow;

And, summing up in one great chord,
Bring the song to a perfect close,
As Dante's diapason blooms
In heaven's eternal rose.

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