Outside of time, where music takes it's shape,
Of virtue, baseness, soul, and gut and art,
Of sov'reign noble and of harlot low,
Of rock and dale, to sky and firmament,
From frozen cavern filled with gloomy ice,
To thinning oaks that cap the mighty peaks,
The earthly rocks will hum and join with me,
To boundless sound existing there discarnate,
Together let us symphonize our pitch,
And lift this humble overture on high,
(For this is no pastoral, minor song
content with gazing merely at the earth,
Nor planetary ode that worships stars,
This!) This is humanity, and I note;
From our Genesis extempore, spellbound,
All things built shall come, crashing in again,
The fine and tiny point of God's command-
The breathy wooden sigh and brassy roar,
The crash of cymbals and the strike of keys.
Till I return- from fiery ashes into barren dust-
Catch I but snips and strums of heaven's song,
Though hist'ry well commends me to refrains,
I pour my soul to hearing organized,
And though my work is bloodless yet has heart,
I long for my short life to bear to hear:
For one brief instant matched into a chord,
As many notes as I can stand to see,
And then from dissonance, birth harmony.
