And plucked at the souls and hearts of men;
And still as it rose the sleet came down
In the Market Square of Danbury town.

And now from hundreds of opened doors,
With quiet paces
And happy faces,
In ones and twos and threes and fours,
A crowd pressed out to the Market Square
And stood in the storm and listened there.

And, oh, with what a solemn tender strain
The long-drawn music eased their hearts of pain;
And gave them visions of divine content;
Green fields and happy valleys far away,
And rippling streams and sunshine and the scent
Of bursting buds and flowers that come in May.
And one spoke in a rapt and gentle voice,
And bade his friends rejoice,
"For now," he said, "I see, I see once more
My little lass upon a pleasant shore
Standing, as long ago she used to stand,
And beckoning to me with her dimpled hand.
As in the vanished years,
So I behold her and forget my tears."
And each one had his private joy, his own,
All the old happy things he once had known,
Renewed and from the prisoning past set free,
And mixed with hope and happy things to be.