The Lost Accord

Seated one day at the wireless, I was
weary of modern strain,
And my fingers wandered idly and
twiddled the knobs in vain.
I knew not what I was seeking, Schubert
or Strauss or swing,

For my soul craved something soothing,
but I could not find a thing.
I had tried all “A” class stations; I had
wandered thro’ the “B’s”;
But still unsoothed, unsolaced, I tuned in
overseas.

I gave brief ear to Elgar; I heard a Ger-
man band,
And a something by Sibelius that I
couldn’t understand;
Then Bach, Brahms and Beethoven,
etudes, in various flats,
And Buddy Blink’s Boys howling like a
bunch of crazy cats.
Hymns and hill-billy “music” and jazz,
both “sweet” and “hot.”
But still my tortured spirit yearned for—
I knew not what.

Vainly I searched and listened, all up
and down the scale,
Seeking that mystic something to free
me from travail.
And then my restless finger touched some
remote control,
And out of the ambient ether sweet peace
came to my soul.
I had found it! I had found it! Ah, let the
heedless scoff,
’Twas the sound of a mighty silence. For
I’d switched the darn thing off.

Maybe when Death’s kind fingers upon
this brow are lain
I shall hear, in some cosmic haven, that
glorious sound again.
But briefly had I heard it, for a moment’s
space, no more;
Then in thro’ the open window came the
blare of the set next door,
And three from over the roadway, and
one from the flat upstairs.
Then I knew I had lost for e’er in life that
peace caught unawares.