Tower of Ivory/The Reed-Player

by Archibald MacLeish

THE REED-PLAYER

(After Macleod)

A hollow reed against his lips
He played a soaring strain,
That fled his dancing finger tips
Light as a swallow wheels and dips
Above the flowing grain.

The Song of Songs it was, strange wrought
Beyond the heather hills
From memories and dreams, and taught
By shepherd women who had caught
Its lilt from mountain rills.

The beating of a heart I heard
In that forlorn sweet air,
The singing of a distant bird,
A sigh, a softly uttered word
And echoed laughter there.

"Play me a song of Death," I whispered then.
He raised his hollow reed as one who longs
To turn to dreams, and smiled, and played again
The Song of Songs.