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| I HAVE fancied, sometimes, the Bethel-bent beam, | |
| That trembled to earth in the patriarch’s dream, | |
| Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest, | |
| From the pillar of stone to the blue of the blest, | |
| And the angels descending to dwell with us here, | 5 |
| “Old Hundred,” and “Corinth,” and “China,” and “Mear.” | |
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| “Let us sing to God’s praise,” the minister said. | |
| All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at “York”; | |
| Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he read, | |
| While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead, | 10 |
| And politely picked up the key-note with a fork; | |
| And the vicious old viol went growling along | |
| At the heels of the girls, in the rear of the song. | |
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| All the hearts are not dead, not under the sod, | |
| That those breaths can blow open to heaven and God! | 15 |
| Ah, “Silver Street” flows by a bright shining road,— | |
| Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed,— | |
| But the sweet human psalms of the old-fashioned choir, | |
| To the girl that sang alto—the girl that sang air! | |
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| Oh, I need not a wing—bid no genii come | 20 |
| With a wonderful web from Arabian loom, | |
| To bear me again up the river of Time, | |
| When the world was in rhythm, and life was its rhyme— | |
| Where the streams of the years flowed so noiseless and narrow, | |
| That across it there floated the song of the sparrow— | 25 |
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| For a sprig of green caraway carries me there, | |
| To the old village church, and the old village choir, | |
| Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung, | |
| And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they sung, | |
| Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun | 30 |
| Seemed the rafters of gold in God’s temple begun! | |
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| You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown, | |
| Who followed by scent, till he ran the tune down; | |
| And dear Sister Green, with more goodness than grace, | |
| Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place, | 35 |
| And where “Coronation” exultingly flows, | |
| Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes! | |
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| To the land of the leal they have gone with their song, | |
| Where the choir and the chorus together belong. | |
| Oh be lifted, ye gates! Let me hear them again— | 40 |
| Blessèd song, blessèd singers! forever, Amen! | |
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