FUGUE by Caroline Leslie

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

FUGUE

By Caroline Leslie

Our fingers on Life's hallowed organ-keys, We play, with differing theme, the tune of time; While through our discords and our harmonies, Along the echoing octaves to the skies, Triumphant-footed God's sure purports climb.

Awhile, with heaven-blinded eyes, we stand In the first bright, unconscious solitude That peoples all the world from fairy land, And hold instinctively, with lingering hand, The brief, glad cadences of babyhood.

Our grasp grows wonted to the sounding maze; A stronger tone takes up the melody; The childish treble of our earlier days Becomes a dreamlike memory, that plays ’Round manhood's full, sonorous symphony.

And whence these airy notes that float and grow, Now clearly sweet, now vague and shadowy, Across a somber warp in golden glow Flashing their magic shuttles to and fro, To weave love's intermediate harmony?

Hark! vailed in rolling chords the theme again Questioning, eager-tongued, of coming years; While from afar a stealing minor strain, All palpitating and alive with pain, Breathes back the answer in a sound of tears.

A slower movement now—a softer key; From trembling hands of age the old refrain Wavers to silence. Shall there no more be Of all that has been? Lo! across death's sea Heaven echoes back the glad child-song again.

—Caroline Leslie, in the Evening Post.