THE MASTER HAND.

It is something too strange to understand,

How all the chords on the instrument,

Whether sorrowful, blithe, or grand,

Under the touch of your master hand

Were into one melody blent.

Major, minor, everything — all —

Came at your magic fingers’ call.

Why! famed musicians had turned in despair

Again and again from those self-same keys;

They mayhap brought forth a simple air,

But a discord always crept in somewhere,

In their fondest efforts to please.

Or a jarring, jangling, meaningless strain

Angered the silence to noisy pain.

“Out of tune,” they would frown and say;

Or “a loosened key” or “a broken string;”

But sure and certain they were alway,

That no man living on earth could play

Measures more perfect, or bring

Sweeter sounds or a truer air

Out of that curious instrument there.

And then you came. You swept the scale

With a mighty master’ s wonderful art.

You made the minor keys sob and wail,

While the low notes rang like a bell in a gale.

And every chord in my heart,

From the deep bass tones to the shrill ones above,

Joined into that glorious harmony — Love.

And now, though I live for a thousand years,

On no new chord can a new hand fall.

The chords of sorrow, of pain, of tears,

The chords of raptures and hopes and fears,

I say you have struck them all;

And all the meaning put into each strain

By the Great Composer, you have made plain.