In Meeting houses all week shut,
More naked than a negro hut,
I spent my Sundays, three times o'er,
Dreaming the world outside the door,
And twixt my nods appearing good,
Spite of the hard knots in the wood;
Standing for hymns that had no song,
Kneeling to prayers, oh, how long!
Hearing of preaching always dull
And learning nothing beautiful
Except that one bald-headed stork
Who woke me with a Tuning Fork.

He struck it on the pew-back near
And put it tingling to his ear,
And from it caught some wizard sign
As if it was the devil's tine,
Then back he threw his neck and head
And raised a roar would wake the dead.
What it did give him, like a witch,
I did not grasp — they called it pitch —
But Pitch was also in the pit
Where wicked souls were wicks they lit,
And forks to flames fed sinners stark
With wails not like a Tuning Fork.

Long would I marvel, close would mark
The magic in that Tuning Fork —
The only miracle in hand
My little mind could understand.
I heard, without, the pine trees moan,
The horses neigh, the cold crow crone,
The sleigh bells jingled by the hoof,
The swallows in the open roof,
And from my ear vibrations were
Melodious of that chorister,
And waves of music like a lark
Swept through me from the Tuning Fork.

I knew no other instrument,
But through the wide world as I went
Tunes, rhythms, songs my life bewitch:
I struck the note that gave the pitch.
I took the key and found the line —
Music is worship most divine!
Go ye to Heaven, whom harps await,
But let me tune outside the gate,
Where Nature strikes the key for me
With all her temples Melody,
And with her winged pinions shod,
I raise the hymn that soars to God.