Poem LVI.

  MELODIES UNHEARD.

Musicians wrestle everywhere:
All day, among the crowded air,
  I hear the silver strife;
And -- waking long before the dawn --
Such transport breaks upon the town
  I think it that "new life!"

It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
  Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read, --
The morning stars the treble led
  On time's first afternoon!

Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
  Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face,
  Please God, shall ascertain!




