[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
The Melodists
Ere Tubal Cain, the Hand that shook the void
To form and life, set on the mountain high
The grasses for the nest, and in the sky
Flung far apart, by virgin pinions bouyed
Two birds that took the morning unalloyed
For trysting time, and first alone did fly
Then side by side to plan earth’s aviary —
So was cold Isolation’s reign destroyed.
Harsh were the voices of the earth and air —
Discordant crys, and all the places dull,
Song cradleless, nor music anywhere
Till the sky’s choristers made beautiful
The wide grim silence, and the keynote found
That thrills the gamut of melodic sound.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 27
Editor’s notes:
ere = (archaic) before (from the Middle English “er”, itself from the Old English “aer”, meaning early or soon)
pinion = a bird’s wing; in more specific usage, the outer section of a bird’s wing; in broader usage, “pinions” refers to the wings of a bird (“pinion” may also refer specifically to a feather, especially a flight feather, or a quill)
Leave a Reply