There is music on disc and on wireless,
Band-music, dance-tunes for the tireless,
Sweet music from day unto day;
But the music a man will remember
Shakes down the last leaves of November,
And speeds the wild geese in December,
And greets the first oak-bud in May.
What string with such beauty can tremble?
What bugle such raptures assemble?
What trumpet can sound such a call?
Is there ever a melody nearer
The quick-beating heart of the hearer?
Is there ever a tune that is dearer
As it chooses a dance for us all?
No song is so sweet in the setting,
No lilt so forbids all forgetting
Or lingers so long by the way;
When the shadows of night gather o’er us,
And the scarlet has faded before us,
The ring of that ravishing chorus
Dies not with the death of the day.