THE GERMAN BAND

When I was a little child

And lived very near the sky,

A German band was wonderful music

That could almost make me cry.

It was to me of a beauty

That I could not understand,

Though I dimly guessed at sorrow and joy

In a grown-up distant land.

All that I know with the years,

Much that I never shall know,

Was in my heart when the music came

In such guise, years ago.

And now when on Friday mornings

I hear my own child run,

When the German band in the street starts playing,

The wonder is never done;

The wonder at ways that our spirit

May take for itself to rise,

How a puddle may be a silver lake,

And a chimney touch the skies.

All the forms through which spirit

Yearns and strives to be known

Are only a little greater or less,

For great is the Spirit alone.