Music at a Deathbed

Bring music! stir the brooding air
With an ethereal breath!
Bring sounds, my struggling soul to bear
Up from the couch of death!

A voice, a flute, a dreamy lay,
Such as the southern breeze
Might waft, at golden fall of day,
O’er blue, transparent seas!

Oh, no! not such! That lingering spell
Would lure me back to life,
When my wean’d heart hath said farewell,
And pass’d the gates of strife.

Let not a sigh of human love
Blend with the song its tone!
Let no disturbing echo move
One that must die alone!

But pour a solemn-breathing strain
Fill’d with the soul of prayer!
Let a life’s conflict, fear, and pain,
And trembling hope be there.

Deeper, yet deeper! In my thought
Lies more prevailing sound,
A harmony intensely fraught
With pleading more profound:

A passion unto music given,
A sweet, yet piercing cry;
A breaking heart’s appeal to Heaven,
A bright faith’s victory!

Deeper! Oh! may no richer power
Be in those notes enshrined?
Can all which crowds on earth’s last hour
No fuller language find?

Away! and hush the feeble song,
And let the chord be still’d!
Far in another land ere long
My dream shall be fulfill’d.