218 ADELAIDE PROCTER. Adelaide Procter's poems are remarkable for their simplicity and directness of style. Many of them are songs — real songs, whose full beauty can not be appre- ciated until we hear them sung. Those who have heard " Cleansing Fires " or "The Lost Chord" fitly rendered will appreciate this truth. THE LOST CHORD. Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, And my fingers wandered idly Over the noisy keys. I knew not what I was. playing, Or what I was dreaming then ; But I struck one chord of music Like the sound of a great Amen. It flooded the crimson twilight Like the close of an angel's Psalm; And it lay on my fevered spirit "With a touch of infinite calm. It quieted pain and sorrow Like love overcoming strife; It seemed the harmonious echo From our discordant life. It linked all perplexed meanings Into one perfect peace, And trembled away into silence As if it were loth to cease. I have sought, but I seek it vainly, That one lost, chord divine That came from the soul of the organ, And entered into mine. It may be that Death's bright angel Will speak in that chord again, It may be that only in Heaven I shall hear that grand Amen.
