Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/48

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
And the miracle bars of skill."Talk to me, Tifa, talk.""Of what, dear Beauty?""Ah, that is it—beauty."I lose a whisper, and wait."The song—the song we heard—"And I know I must tell againThe story of the bird, the lowland roverThat high above our mountain orchardSang till a cadent coastRose on the unbodied air,And all our outbound dreams put backWhere his music made a shore.
  (Words, words! So softThat they may fall on painAnd make it less! Softer than leavesTapping a forest sleeper; while the heartIs like a swollen glacier crowding earth.)
Up he went singing; climbed a spiral chainThat linked his joy to heaven;And circling, swerving as he rose, he builtAn airy masonry of smoothest domesAnd jetting minarets, as though he sawFrom his blue height a city of the EastAnd in a music mirror set it fairFor his high rapture. Did we see it?Slim, flowing alleys, streets that woundTo temples cool as shaded lakes;Pure arches, pillars of piled notes;Cornice and frieze and pendant flungIn rillets from one tiny heartAs prodigal as God's?
What, dearest? When you dieYou'll stop and live there? Not go onTo Heaven?

33

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.