Page:A channel passage and other poems (IA channelpassageot00swinrich).pdf/98

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MUSIC: AN ODE

I.

Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music

that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun
or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons
that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded
with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life
was heard.

II.

Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,

Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall
was free.