It Doth Expand My Privacies
To All, And Leave Me Single In The Crowd.
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have
not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life.
I will not doubt the love untold,
Which not my worth nor want hath bought,
Which wooed me young and wooes me old,
And to this evening hath me brought.
What are ears? what is Time? that this particular series of
sounds called a strain of music, an invisible and fairy troop
which never brushed the dew from any mead, can be wafted down
through the centuries from Homer to me, and he have been
conversant with that same aerial and mysterious charm which now
so tingles my ears? What a fine communication from age to age,
of the fairest and noblest thoughts, the aspirations of ancient
men, even such as were never communicated by speech, is music!
It is the flower of language, thought colored and curved, fluent
and flexible, its crystal fountain tinged with the sun's rays,
and its purling ripples reflecting the grass and the clouds. A
strain of music reminds me of a passage of the Vedas, and I
associate with it the idea of infinite remoteness, as well as of
beauty and serenity, for to the senses that is farthest from us
which addresses the greatest depth within us. It teaches us
again and again to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest
instinct, and makes a dream our only real experience.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 183 of 422
Words from 50373 to 50642
of 116321
