When musical chords are tensioned
To sentiments they should express,
And touched by a master artist
Whose deft hand gives the proper stress,
The effect is so ecstatic
When vibrations fall on the ear,
The soul stands in silent rapture,
And our being expands to hear.

At skillful touch of the master
A creation of joy is given,
That lends to the spirit pinions
To waft it away toward heaven,
While it sings to the same measure
And becomes a part of the song,
Enraptured by the magic power
Which carries it gently along.

O the magic power of tension
When a master hand has control!
It wins the heart's approbation
And augments the receptive soul;
'Tis a rapture born in heaven
To entrance our expectant ears,
'Tis angelic diapason
Such as harmonized once the spheres.

We each have an organ, tensioned
With a thousand strings and their keys,
All made by a Master builder
Who permits us ourselves to please;
Its wonderful combinations
Far surpass all the works of art,
'Tis the master-piece of creation—
The versatile, strange, human heart.

We have sole choice of the music
That shall sound on the tensioned strings;
We may choose if sad or joyous
Shall be the final note it sings;
Though fate may fling fiercest chaos,
Its Maker reserved to us powers
That we need not ever surrender,
For the strength to possess is ours.

Let my tongue sing songs of rapture
And my heart-strings sweetly respond,
Till the notes shall pass earth's border
And reach the bright portals beyond;
And when in the great hereafter
The tension shall be much increased,
My joys will be there augmented
To know that earth's songs have not ceased.

I often long for some quiet nook
Away from the noise and strife
Which come from the steady daily round
That absorbs my busy life;
Away in some shadowy forest
Whose silence is supreme,
Save the song of feathered minstrel
And the murmur of a stream;
Far away among the dark shadows
That form Fauna's trysting-bowers,—
But the time of this total seclusion
Should ne'er exceed six hours.