MUSIC

                                                      I was all ear
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death                                                          

I would not have that music stop     
Nor see the conductor hesitate,
Or want to play those bars again.
I would hear the notes the composer has ordained
As if they were to be played for ever
A continuous, continually ordered change.
For the music I thought was mine has gone,
And only when the music of some other soul
Plays in the empty heart of my days,
Can some sense return, can the fragments
Of an unheeded life coalesce, and the ribbed flesh
Sing, tuned to a soul it would call its own.
Therefore
I would not have that music stop.