Bid regiments form?
Did a renegade's soul get free
On a wail of the storm?

Did a flock of wild geese honk
As they cleared the hill?
Or only a bittern cronk,
Then all was still?

Was it a night stampede
Of a thousand head?
I know I shook like a reed
There on my bed.

Nameless and void and wild
Was the fear before me,
Ere I bethought me and smiled
As the truth flashed o'er me.

Of course, it was only his hand
Freeing the bass
Of his old Amati, grand
In the silence' face.

Rummaging up and down,
From string to string,
Bidding the discords drown,
The harmonies spring,

Where tides and tide-winds rove