Music, and Other Poems

I. IN EXCELSIS

     Two dwellings, Peace, are thine.
          One is the mountain-height,
     Uplifted in the loneliness of light
       Beyond the realm of shadows,—fine,
     And far, and clear,—where advent of the night
     Means only glorious nearness of the stars,
     And dawn, unhindered, breaks above the bars
     That long the lower world in twilight keep.
     Thou sleepest not, and hast no need of sleep,
     For all thy cares and fears have dropped away;
     The night's fatigue, the fever-fret of day,
     Are far below thee; and earth's weary wars,
       In vain expense of passion, pass
     Before thy sight like visions in a glass,
     Or like the wrinkles of the storm that creep
       Across the sea and leave no trace
     Of trouble on that immemorial face,—
     So brief appear the conflicts, and so slight
     The wounds men give, the things for which they fight.

     Here hangs a fortress on the distant steep,—
       A lichen clinging to the rock:
     There sails a fleet upon the deep,—
              A wandering flock
     Of snow-winged gulls: and yonder, in the plain,
       A marble palace shines,—a grain
       Of mica glittering in the rain.
       Beneath thy feet the clouds are rolled
       By voiceless winds: and far between
     The rolling clouds new shores and peaks are seen,
       In shimmering robes of green and gold,
             And faint aerial hue
     That silent fades into the silent blue.
          Thou, from thy mountain-hold,
     All day, in tranquil wisdom, looking down
     On distant scenes of human toil and strife,
     All night, with eyes aware of loftier life,
     Uplooking to the sky, where stars are sown,
     Dost watch the everlasting fields grow white
     Unto the harvest of the sons of light,
     And welcome to thy dwelling-place sublime
     The few strong souls that dare to climb
     The slippery crags and find thee on the height.