Classic Poem

The air breaks into flutters low and sweet,
Smooth as the liquid passage of the bird;
And as the ocean-murmur, faintly heard
Before the storm, its rippling echoes beat
The ear. But then with swifter, bolder feet
The message comes; the music stirs the heart
To wild pulsations, until every part
Is glowing, fervid with a throbbing heat.
Slowly the memories of the past then rise
In pallid glory; richer streams of sound,
Wild with mysterious truth, all cloudlike, roll
About the heart and flood with tears the eyes:
But then a silence, stern, abrupt, profound:
A vaster echo trembles in the soul!