C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta (1815–1891)

HE who with bold and skillful hand sweeps o’er

The organ-keys of some cathedral pile,

Flooding with music, vault and nave and aisle,

Though on his ear falls but a thundrous roar,—

In the composer’s lofty motive free,

Knows well that all that temple vast and dim

Thrills to its base with anthem, psalm, and hymn

True to the changeless laws of harmony.

So he who on these changing chords of life,

With firm, sweet touch plays the Great Master’s score

Of truth, and love, and duty, evermore,

Knows too that far beyond this roar and strife,

Though he may never hear, in the true time

These notes must all accord in symphonies sublime.