Henry Abbey: Verses about Music

So many poets die ere they are known,
I pray you, hear me kindly for their sake.
Not of the harp, but of the soul alone,
Is the deep music all true minstrels make:
Hear my soul's music, and I will beguile,
With string and song, your festival awhile.

The stranger, looking on a merry scene
Where unknown faces shine with love and joy,
Feels that he is a stranger: on this green
That fronts the castle, seeing your employ,
My heart sank desolate; yet came I near,
For welcome should be found at all good cheer.

Provence my home, and fancy not, I pray,
That in Provence no lords save Love abide;
For there Neglect, that, coming down the way,
Or priest, or Levite takes the other side,
Neglect, false neighbor, flung at me the scoff:
'Honor is cold, but loves true worth-far off!'

Love is the key-note of the universe-
The theme, the melody; though poorly decked,
Masters, I ask but little of your purse,
For love, not gold, is best to heal neglect.
Love yields true fame when love is widely sown;
Bloom, flower of love!-lest I, too, die unknown.

In Lyons, in the mart of that French town,
Years since, a woman, leading a fair child,
Craved a small alms of one who, walking down
The thoroughfare, caught the child's glance, and smiled
To see, behind its eyes, a noble soul.
He paused, but found he had no coin to dole.

His guardian angel warned him not to lose
This chance of pearl to do another good;
So as he waited, sorry to refuse
The asked-for penny, there aside he stood,
And with his hat held as by limb the nest
He covered his kind face, and sang his best.

The sky was blue above, and all the lane
Of commerce where the singer stood was filled,
And many paused, and, listening, paused again,
To hear the voice that through and through them thrilled.
I think the guardian angel helped along
That cry for pity woven in a song.

The singer stood between the beggars there,
Before a church, and, overhead, the spire,
A slim, perpetual finger in the air
Held toward heaven, land of the heart's desire,
As if an angel, pointing up, had said,
'Yonder a crown awaits this singer's head.'

The hat of its stamped brood was emptied soon
Into the woman's lap, who drenched with tears
Her kiss upon the hand of help: 't was noon,
And noon in her glad heart drove forth her fears.
The singer, pleased, passed on, and softly thought,
'Men will not know by whom this deed was wrought.'

But when at night he came upon the stage,
Cheer after cheer went up from that wide throng,
And flowers rained on him: naught could assuage
The tumult of the welcome, save the song
The he had sweetly sung, with covered face,
For the two beggars in the market-place.