Lost Music
By George Sterling
Sweet, thou dost take this heart in tender hands
And crush therefrom a music ceaselessly;
For when 'tis night those chords acknowledge thee,
And in the day thy deathless memory stands
Like some strange flower found 'mid desert sands.
O wild, wan blossom! Let thy fragrance be
A rapture and a mystery to me,
Who reach thee from insufferable lands.
O fragile music, lost like winds that die!
O lone, last flower, mute and fountainless,
What strains shall tell my sorrow and thy grace?
Thou passest as a moon adown the sky—
Thou who hast drained the world of loveliness
And set the blinding glory in thy face!
Written in Sag Harbor.