I made a thousand little songs
Of laughing harps and fairy gongs,
That rhymed and chimed melodiously
Of earth and air and sea.
O steadily and true I sang,
The airy bells of verse I rang
Till finer singers read my lays
And gave them tears of praise.
But still my heart is sick with fears,
As high above the singing tears,
I hear the song I cannot sing
Flood my imagining.
For no where in the earth or sea,
Nor in the light and life I share,
Is semblance of that melody
That breathes its soul to me.
And yet in every leaf that swings,
through all the grass the lyric sings,
On every wind's ethereal lyre
It thrills in tones of fire.
Some night when all the air is still,
And not a stir on stream and hill
Will it come crying infant-weak
That song of God I seek?
First published in The Lone Hand, 16 June 1919
