Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? 
  Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! 
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same? 
  Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands? 
There shall never be one lost good!  What was, shall live as before;
  The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 70
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
  On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
  Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,
  When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 
  The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
  Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by. 80

And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence
  For the fulness of the days?  Have we withered or agonized? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? 
  Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
  Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: 
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
  The rest may reason and welcome; ’tis we musicians know.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: 
  I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90
Give me the keys.  I feel for the common chord again,
  Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—­yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
  Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep: 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
  The C Major of this life:  so, now I will try to sleep.

* * * * *

RABBI BEN EZRA

Grow old along with me deg.! deg.1
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God:  see all, nor be afraid!”

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall!”
Not that, admiring stars, 10
It yearned “Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”

Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate:  folly wide the mark! 
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.