Music ingathers all, yet takes one only
into its secret when the chimes begin.
When that great rain of sound comes down,
the lonely of spirit is elect and enters in.
One evening shines with bells; alone, apart we listen, awed,
to the antiphonal pealing of our hearts.
Music by right is for the solitaries
whom a long silence trains to the profound.
The bells are ours; we come at the first airy
rumor to drench our deserts with their sound.
Yet anyone who listens may become
hermit or anchorite under the shower
when the great chimes -- tree shakes its leaves of light.
When the two shall become one
the one is still the two:
sound and silence together thrill the flute —
Each heart must have its mind or the circle is not true.
When the One has seen the Other —
a voice not his, a passion not hers —
together in God they are now, as such,
written on a single page in lines not made to touch.