John Hay: Verses about Music

Sing the last word of the day!
Voice of the sparrow belated!
What hast thou seen by the way?
What hast thou loved most or hated?
Sadness to melody mated,
What is the grudge thou wouldst pay?

Work, is it sadder than play?
Sorrow or joy sooner sated?
Dreams the sweet blossom of May
To what dull fruitage 't is fated?
When life and death are translated,
Seems Death or Life the more gay?

Linger, shy singer, O stay!
Though the swift night has abated
Sky, lake, and woodland to gray.
Long have we questioned and waited.
Question and answer unmated
Die with the vanishing day.

I gazed upon my love while music smote
The soft night air into glad harmony;
Lapt on the ripples of a silver sea,
I heard the bright tones rapturous dance and float.
Hearing and sight were wed; each flattering note
Meant some perfection of my love to me.
Caressed by music, it was bliss to see
Her form, white-robed, the jewel at her throat,
Her glimmering hands, her dusky, perfumed hair,
Her low, clear brow, her deep, proud, dreaming eyes,
Bent kindly upon me, her worshiper;
The dulcet, delicate sounds that shook the air-
As if love's joy rained from the starlit skies
Seemed all sweet, inarticulate thoughts of her.

When Youth's warm heart beats high, my friend,
And Youth's blue sky is bright,
And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend,
Love's early dawning light,
Let the free soul spurn care's control,
And while the glad days shine,
We'll use their beams for Youth's gay dreams
Of Love and Song and Wine.

Let not the bigot's frown, my friend,
O'ercast thy brow with gloom,
For Autumn's sober brown, my friend,
Shall follow Summer's bloom.
Let smiles and sighs and loving eyes
In changeful beauty shine,
And shed their beams on Youth's gay dreams
Of Love and Song and Wine.

For in the weary years, my friend,
That stretched before us lie,
There'll be enough of tears, my friend,
To dim the brightest eye.
So let them wait, and laugh at fate,
While Youth's sweet moments shine,
Till memory gleams with golden dreams
Of Love and Song and Wine.

In the dream of the Northern poets,
The brave who in battle die
Fight on in shadowy phalanx
In the field of the upper sky;
And as we read the sounding rhyme,
The reverent fancy hears
The ghostly ring of the viewless swords
And the clash of the spectral spears.

We think with imperious questionings
Of the brothers whom we have lost,
And we strive to track in death's mystery
The flight of each valiant ghost.
The Northern myth comes back to us,
And we feel, through our sorrow's night,
That those young souls are striving still
Somewhere for the truth and light.

It was not their time for rest and sleep;
Their hearts beat high and strong;
In their fresh veins the blood of youth
Was singing its hot, sweet song.
The open heaven bent over them,
Mid flowers their lithe feet trod,
Their lives lay vivid in light, and blest
By the smiles of women and God.

Again they come! Again I hear
The tread of that goodly band;
I know the flash of Ellsworth's eye
And the grasp of his hard, warm hand;
And Putnam, and Shaw, of the lion-heart,
And an eye like a Boston girl's;
And I see the light of heaven which lay
On UIric Dahlgren's curls.

There is no power in the gloom of hell
To quench those spirits' fire;
There is no power in the bliss of heaven
To bid them not aspire;
But somewhere in the eternal plan
That strength, that life survive,
And like the files on Lookout's crest,
Above death's clouds they strive.

A chosen corps, they are marching on
In a wider field than ours;
Those bright battalions still fulfill
The scheme of the heavenly powers;
And high brave thoughts float down to us,
The echoes of that far fight,
Like the flash of a distant picket's gun
Through the shades of the severing night.

No fear for them! In our lower field
Let us keep our arms unstained,
That at last we be worthy to stand with them
On the shining heights they've gained.
We shall meet and greet in closing ranks
In Time's declining sun,
When the bugles of God shall sound recall
And the battle of life be won.