Producing Melody; Creating Harmony

For this year's tribute to the patron saint of music, St. Cecelia, I present to you a poem which shows how man, cooperating with the world over which he has dominion, creates beauty in the form of music.

      Before man came to blow it right
        The wind once blew itself untaught,
      And did its loudest day and night
        In any rough place where it caught.

      Man came to tell it what was wrong:
        It hadn't found the place to blow;
      It blew too hard - the aim was song.
        And listen - how it ought to go!

      He took a little in his mouth,
        And held it long enough for north
      To be converted into south,
        And then by measure blew it forth.

      By measure. It was word and note,
        The wind the wind had meant to be -
      A little through the lips and throat.
        The aim was song - the wind could see.

"The Aim Was Song" (from the collection New Hampshire, 1923)

Robert Frost (1874-1963)