Elliott Carter - Musicians Wrestle Everywhere
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Musicians wrestle everywhere:
All day, among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife;
And - waking long before the morn -
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that "new life"!
It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed
Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read, -
The morning stars the treble led
On time's first afternoon!
Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face
Please God, shall ascertain!
All day, among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife;
And - waking long before the morn -
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that "new life"!
It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed
Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read, -
The morning stars the treble led
On time's first afternoon!
Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face
Please God, shall ascertain!
