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Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  270 The Blind Psalmist

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Elizabeth ClementineKinney

270 The Blind Psalmist

HE sang the airs of olden times

In soft, low tones to sacred rhymes,

Devotional, but quaint;

His fingers touched the viol’s strings,

And at their gentle vibratings

The glory of an angel’s wings

Hung o’er that aged saint!

His thin, white locks, like silver threads

On which the sun its radiance sheds,

Or like the moonlit snow,

Seemed with a lustre half divine

Around his saintly brow to shine,

Till every scar, or time-worn line,

Was gilded with its glow.

His sightless balls to heaven upraised,

As with the spirit’s eyes he gazed

On things invisible—

Reflecting some celestial light—

Were like a tranquil lake at night,

On which two mirrored planets bright

The concave’s glory tell.

Thus, while the patriarchal saint

Devoutly sang to music quaint,

I saw old Homer rise

With buried centuries from the dead,

The laurel green upon his head,

As when the choir of bards he led,

With rapt, but blinded eyes!

And Scio’s isle again looked green,

As when the poet there was seen,

And Greece was in her prime;

While Poesy with epic fire

Did once again the Bard inspire,

As when he swept his mighty lyre

To vibrate through all time.

The vision changed to Albion’s shore:

I saw a sightless Bard once more

From dust of ages rise!

I heard the harp and deathless song

Of glorious Milton float along,

Like warblings from the birds that throng

His muse’s Paradise!

And is it thus, when blindness brings

A veil before all outer things,

That visual spirits see

A world within, than this more bright,

Peopled with living forms of light,

And strewed with gems, as stars of night

Strew diamonds o’er the sea?

Then, reverend saint! though old and blind,

Thou with the quenchless orbs of mind

Canst natural sight o’erreach;

Upborne on Faith’s triumphant wings,

Canst see unutterable things,

Which only through thy viol’s strings,

And in thy songs, find speech.