The Magic Wand

As an April garden

Breathes the scent of rain—

Rain that calls her treasures

Back to life again—

So my spirit quickens to the opening strain.

In its sheath of darkness

Fancy's folded wing

Thrills and stirs and quivers

To another spring,

When the bow is drawn across the trembling string.

In their grave of silence,

In their husk and core,

Dreams that winter buried

Feel the sap once more

Running warm and vital, as it ran before.

Into secret chambers

Where old passions sleep,

Through the long-closed shutters,

Lights of morning creep:

Through the opening doorway airs of morning sweep.

Hope resurgent, and Youth,

With their dancing train,

Mingled grief and glory,

Blended bliss and pain,

Ecstasies and agonies, come forth and live again.

Wizard hand that summoned

Each forgotten ghost,

Plays like wind or water

With the spell-bound host,

Sailing seas supernal, for no earthly coast.

Yet no magic music

That an ear can mark

Draws them winging upward

Through the mist and dark,

As the sky at sunrise draws the mounting lark.

Through the poet-spirit,

Touched with heavenly fire,

Heavenly voices whisper

In the wood and wire.

God is the musician, and my soul the lyre.