Now Asia, Africa leave me, Europe seizing inflates me,
To organs huge and bands I hear as from vast concourses of voices,
Luther’s strong hymn Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Rossini’s Stabat Mater dolorosa,
Or floating in some high cathedral dim with gorgeous color’d windows,
The passionate Agnus Dei or Gloria in Excelsis.
Composers! mighty maestros!
And you, sweet singers of old lands, soprani, tenori, bassi!
To you a new bard caroling in the West,
Obeisant sends his love.
(Such led to thee O soul,
All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,
But now it seems to me sound leads o’er all the rest.)
I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul’s cathedral,
Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,
oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn,
The Creation in billows of godhood laves me.
Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)
Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
Endow me with their throbbings, Nature’s also,
The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,
Utter, pour in, for I would take them all!
