Huge as a precipice in the summer night
The black porch yawned above him like a wave
And swallowed him. Shrunk to a grain of sand
He paused inside, bewildered at the sense
Of so much height and darkness, till his eyes
Gained strength, and in the emptiness dark shapes,
Pinnacled rocks and towering trunks of stone,
Loomed round him and, high hung like long pale banners,
Tall windows showed. And it seemed the whole void cavern
Vibrated sensitive as a strung harp,
For his shy footfall woke a spreading trouble
That echoed from furthest galleries and vaults
Awareness of his presence. He crossed the transept,
Climbed to the loft hung like a falcon’s nest
On the sheer face of the triforium,
From which the towering shafts of organ-pipes
Shot up like tropic growths. There, round about him,
The music books, the rows of stops, the close
Familiar walls of oak glowed as a core
Of radiance in the darkness; and he sought
Books of old music, chose his stops, began.
Vague tremors shook the stillness, voices woke,
And the emptiness was peopled with the life
Of crowding notes. Down the wide nave, along
Cold aisles, through secret chapels, hanging vaults,
Flowed the warm circulation of sweet sounds
Like health into a body long diseased,
While the august and ancient music-makers
Woke from long sleep and their immortal voices
Flooded the dark shrine with a golden beauty.
And he, the player, with cunning fingers piling
Sound upon sound, harmony on harmony,
Launched out his spirit upon those tides of music
Until it grew and filled the shadowy place,
Swung with the arches, soared to the topmost vault,
Put on the whole great structure as a garment,
Sang with those ancient voices as with his own,
And on the summit of the last pure chord
Found unity and peace. He raised his hands:
The music stopped, and his full-statured spirit
Shrivelled. The horror of sheer height hung above him,
The cavern of sheer depth was scooped below,
And silence fell like doom. Out in the dark,
Blind windows hung, dumb columns rose, vast trunks
Upheaved the heavy foliage of the night,
And darkness, emptiness, like birds of prey
Swooped back and perched about him, grimly still,
While he, as in the bright cup of a flower,
Rigid, with sharpened senses, hung besieged.