Music, They Say, Can Cheer the Saddest Heart

Angela, sweep hence these leaden clouds. Music, they say, can cheer the saddest heart. Euterpe bids her frowning father smile, so let her now reveal her powers to me. And yet you play a doleful Orphic strain. O let me hear a light and happy air. But no, for that would, mocking, only chide: "So sad?" The bat, the mole, must shun the sudden light. The slave, surprised, may fear his broken chains. Your chords reach down to find my sunless pit. When pity salts, sympathy salves, the wound. A song of love can melt the strongest bars. Raised by strong cords I scale my dungeon walls. Soon shall I feel the firm earth under foot, soon shall I ply my worldly trade again. Yet you play on! Your healing task is done. I paid the piper, so let me call the tune. Rising too high, I fear a greater fall. As sweet as cane the melody you play. The solid world dissolves into the air. Of Heaven's gate you hold the golden key. Let me but linger at the Temple's door. Entering, I bid the earth adieu. Content once to have heard the bells of burning gold, once to have stood before celestial walls. Then back to earth, but never to the same. For Heaven's tones, once heard, can never die. Oh, when the scales have fallen, we see, we hear, we know our element is boundless, like water and like air.