Poems (Hoffman)/The Blind Musician

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

THE BLIND MUSICIAN

Lightly over the ivory keys
The white hands move in their measured grace,
But never a note the player sees
Or the light aglow in an upturned face.

Thoughts are afloat on the river of song
Like golden boats with transparent oars
As swiftly, sadly, sweetly along
The winding flood in its grandeur pours.

There are ripples now and then in the stream
And cascades that dash on the rocks below
But the oars keep time to the one grand theme
That ever blends with the river's flow.

There are vessels afloat on the changing tide
That never were launched from a rugged coast
And phantom barques o'er the cascades glide
That only the river of song can boast;

And fairy yachts o'er the ripples play
And nymphs and naiads and mermaids throng
To lave in the cascade's silvery spray
In the beautiful, beautiful river of song.

Does she see them all as she sits apart,
From the listening crowd in the hall below?
For the blind have windows of soul and heart
That only God and the angels know.

Veiled is the outer sense of sight
Darkness and blackness from all outside
But it never, never can be night
Whence such wondrous streams of music glide.

Like the feathered songster's richer strain
When by cruel hands deprived of sight,
So grander tones in harmonic train
Flow sweetly forth from life's sad blight.

O blind musician! thy day is night,
Not even the moon, so pensive pale,
Inspires thy notes as with sheeny light
The evening song of the nightingale.

And we go forth to the day—the day
With its wealth of sunshine broad and free
O, our very lives should glide away
As strong and sweet as thy melody!