The Major Symphony

Round splendor of the harp’s entonéd gold Throbbing beneath the pleading violins— That hundred-choiring voice that wins and wins To over-filling song; the bright and bold Clamor of trumpets; ’cellos that enfold Richly the flutes; and basses that like djinns Thunder their clumsy threatening, as begins The oboe’s mystic plaint of sorrows old:— Are these the symphony? No, it is will In passion striving to surmount the world, Growing in sensuous dalliance, sudden whirled To ecstasies of shivering joy, and still Marching and mastering, singing mightily, Consummate when the silence makes it free.