Lord, there is music in my world to-day.

For this I thank Thee; once again I hear

The foamy clash of cymbals and the grave

Hoarse-throated shout of brass which is repulsed,

And the clear triumph of unvanquished pipes—

Battles against stringed instruments and fifes

Which angels wage from organ-stops in Heaven.

I, through the hostile grating of my cell,

Can tiptoe just discern where warrior clouds

Chum smoking broken waters in their wakes,

Which unseen challengers, the winds, do chase,

Drowning their anger to a tranquil depth,

Till in blue sky-weed unrevenged they lie

Like gaunt Armada galleons long since sunk.

So all is calm again, and I look out

With prison'd eyes upon Thy travelling world.

A breath of flowers is in the air to-day,

Spring flowers which have not bloomed for many

months,

Which, for my sake, have come to life this day.

I cannot see them, they grow far from here

With feet entangled in the green, gray earth.

They too are prisoners from their earliest birth,

Yet they have flung their fragrance forth to me

That I, a captive mind, may share their joy.

Now, as I listen, laughter dies away;

In Earth's tall tree-tops, dim and out of sight,

I hear the mining beak of one small bird,

Striving for freedom with its puny strength.

Now the shell breaks; it struggles into life;

Its mother's wings enfold it; it is safe.

Far down beneath the nest the forest sighs,

Swaying its branches, as it too would say,

"I will protect thee from the driving rain,

My leaves shall cover thee, so have no dread"

I also in my ruined strength would pray,

"God grant thee rest, and shelter thee from fear"

If I should live the seasons round again

And God vouchsafe me one more summer's day

Of utter peace, perchance thy voice I'll hear

Trilling in confidence from some cool glade—

And thus my madman's prayer will be repaid.

Laughter breaks forth again; the world is glad.

There's music in the very rocks to-day.

Yea, through my sullen bars the red sun peers

And stains my confines with his golden smile;

God shakes His happiness abroad to-day.

See, I will rake this yellow harvest home

And treasure it against a sadder hour,

When Winter's mantled all our stars in night.

When that shall be, I'll paint my walls with gold,

Loosen my breast and let the sun's rays free,

Re-capture them and hoard them up again;

And so will halt the summer at its prime.

Lord, I am mad; but Thou canst heal my mind.

Once, not long since—long after Thou hadst made

And bastioned with grace my living soul—

Thou, in a careless hour, didst plan my frame,

Moulding my body from the oozy day;

But, just before Thy task was most complete,

Didst nod, and drowse, and waking didst forget

Thy task unfinished—so was I bom mad;

So was my perfect soul a bondsman made

To serve vile lusts of my imperfect brain.

Hast Thou to-day remembered Thy mistake?

This mom I wakened, found that I was sane,

Beheld the East as no unchartered dread

Threat'ning the world with universal fire,

But as Thy kindness held aloft for men;

Then craned I forth my hands to dutch Thy winds,

Nor shrank from them as fore-runners of Death.

Father, before the Darkness falls again,

Before my soul wends backward to the Night,

Grant unto me Thy earliest gift to Man,

Form me in image godlike to Thyself.

Is it beyond Thy power to make me well?

Thou weakling God! then send me down Thy

Christ,

He whose strong pity hath dethroned Thy might,

And made a man a worthier god than Thou:

For he in peasant lands of Galilee

Did love, and love, and love till his heart brake;

He took away the anguish of men's pain

By spending all their pain on his own life;

He drove away the shadows from men's minds

By giving them himself, who was the Light.

Ah Christ, that thou hadst not been crucified!

Wert thou still living by the fishers' lake,

Then thou hadst heard me half across the world;

Though from the Andes, I had cried to thee,

Still hadst thou heard, and come from Palestine

Only to stretch thy cooling hands on me,

Only to rest thy cooling hands in mine—

Those gentle hands, by bleeding feet borne thence.