Lost Chords by Mary Wells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 10, 1910

Lost Chords

By Mary Wells

In Gaza’s tower, with brazen fetters bound, The sightless captive treads his weary round, The mock of those who in an earlier hour Were wont to tremble at his mighty power. That power, alas, is gone! His soul, dismayed, In anguish mourns Jehovah’s gift betrayed.

The psalmist strikes his harp. A minor strain Answers his touch, then dies away in pain. In accents pleading doth he still implore, “Salvation’s joy, O Lord, to me restore!” No more he knows that kinship with his Lord, No more resounds the rapture of that chord.

By alien fire now lingers fearfully He who has sworn eternal loyalty To that loved Master whom he now denies. That Master turns and looks. O loving eyes! But with that look remorse which ne’er will cease Fills Peter’s soul; he weeps for his lost peace.

Lost power, lost joy, lost peace, some vanished strain Each human soul strives ever to regain. The chord is gone, but with the anguished strife The awed soul learns the mystery of life. In this world lost; but list that grand “Amen” By the white throne. ’Tis the lost chord again!

— Mary Wells, in Sunday School Times.