I brood not now upon the printed page,
A nobler voice is in mine ears to-night,
A voice in every land and every age,
Singing strange songs upon its world-wide flight,
And of all music primal harmony.

Thou wert before Pan's pipes or Psalmist's lyre,
Ere troy town was at all, or Sappho's lay,
Thou, wilder than all dreams of young desire,
And younger than the tears of yesterday,
Older than woeful croon of hidden doves
Thro' the noon-dark of Aphrodite's groves.

Waking by night o'er empty moor or dale,
Thou, with thy ranging voices soft and strong,
First to our mute forefathers didst unveil
The immemorial mystery of song,
All sweetest sadness in thy wordless rune,
To all sublimest speech, sufficient tune.