Ave! Once more touch the strings <br />That Memory may feed upon the strain, <br />And over-live again <br />The days, <br />When the heart gloried in the golden lays <br />That give the spirit wings. <br /> <br />Simple—yet how profound <br />The feeling that induces this deathless air! <br />Did heart-ache—or depair, <br />Or dream, <br />Inspire its notes, that spread so charm’d a stream <br />Of harmony around? <br /> <br />Sometimes the deep notes swell <br />Soft as a sigh—the semitone of thought; <br />Yet sometimes seem they fraught <br />With fate— <br />Storm-toned, spirit rousing, jarr’d with hate, <br />And booming like a knell. <br /> <br />Wild, massy, swift and dark, <br />The clashing strains of harmony unite, <br />While o’er their solemn flight, <br />One note <br />Of wandering sweetness doth serenely float, <br />Like love-call of the lark. <br /> <br />Those gloomy chords at last, <br />Roll wave-like through the caverns of the mind, <br />And mystically wind <br />Their way <br />Into dark thoughts, that rise in drear array— <br />The ghost-dreams of the past. <br /> <br />And then the plaintive tone <br />Of pastoral pipe, or mountain brook, or bird, <br />In tranced thought is heard, <br />Until <br />The faint heart fails beneath the Master’s skill, <br />And yearns to be alone. <br /> <br />Yet, lady! yet once more, <br />Bring back that branded train of hopes and fears, <br />The passion of past years, <br />The spell <br />That ruled my being in its inmost cell <br />And then sweet friend! give o’er.<br /><br />George MacDonald<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-a-movement-of-beethoven-s/
