And Lamech, first of bards, whose kindred art Would welcome her sweet sister, watched his son As day by day he saw the promise start Towards accomplishment. Yet neither one, Father nor mother, knew as yet the prize For which they waited with such anxious eyes. They saw that he was not of common mould: His quiet thoughtfulness, his pensive ways, His listening oft as to a story told, With side-turned head, and distant, earnest gaze, Told of some god-like purpose in his brain, Though what it was they asked themselves in vain. So Jubal grew in those far, shadowy years Before the Flood; and so the music grew Within his soul. The common air to him Was as a constant feast; its slightest touch Was joy to which all other joy was pain. The first sensations of his infancy Were blent with it. His mother’s tender sighs,-- Half sighs, half laughter,--as she looked on him, Wondering what sort of man he should become, Were like the breath of angels to his ear; And when his father’s mighty voice came forth, Majestic, through its bearded doors, he hushed The tremulous beatings of his heart to hear. And when his brother Jabal went away, And there were sounds of sorrow in his home, (And he wept too, though hardly knowing why) He treasured up the sounds as precious things, Until they seemed a portion of his life. So did he gather all the tones of love And joy and grief, by strange instinctive power; And by and by, how anger wounds the air, And all the passions of the fallen heart That Satan hissed into the ear of Eve, He sadly learned; and yet with balanced sense, His great, high gift, he traced through all the tones The woman struggling with her serpent-foe, And desperate yearnings for lost innocence. But most he joyed to listen to the words Of happy children, respited a while, From fearful looking to the day of death; And it was Jubal’s chief delight to wed Their gladsome voices with the Eden notes To which the first sweet marriage-hymn was set-- The silver-throated wooing of the birds-- The trilling of the zephyr-courted leaves-- The merry-hearted laughter of the brooks-- The multitudinous hum of joyous life-- The weird lullaby that Nature sings Unto the darlings fondled in her lap, Loving but helpless, and their low response; And all the vocal charms of summer time, That wrap the soul in dreamy, languid bliss.