Page:The Dream of Pythagoras and Other Poems.djvu/38

There first my soul drank music, and was taught
That melody is part of heaven, and lives
In every heaven-bom spirit like her breath;
There did I learn, that music without end
Breathes, murmurs, swells, echoes, and floats, and peals,
And thunders through creation, and in truth
Is the celestial language, and the voice
Of love; and now my soul began to speak
The speech of immortality. But yet
I was to learn a lesson more severe —
To shine alone in darkness, and the deeps
Of sordid earth. So did I fall from heaven
Far into night, beneath the mountains' roots,
There, as a diamond burning, amidst things
Too base for utterance. Then, alas! I felt
The stirrings of impatience, pining sore
For freedom, and communion with the fires
And majesties of heaven, with whom erewhile
I walk'd their equal. I had not yet learn'd
That our appointed place is loftiest,
However lowly. I was made to feel
The dignity of suffering. 0, my sons!
Sorrow and joy are but the spirit's life.

Without these she is scarcely animate;