To Stop The Music

To stop the music
must be a most ignoble thing to do;
to cease the working hands
which so carefully pull away
the hardened shell around you formed —
the scales you wear like fitted armor,
thinking yourself protected from the whips of war;
but you don not steel nor scale,
for you wear simply a chrysalis,
waiting to emerge as a Bearer of Light.

Oh, to stop the music,
what a wretched sinful act,
to lay down rules and laws
by form and habit lacking self-deduction;
for music leads from dark to light
those who stand in Pride's shadow —
music is the great revolutionary,
the healing touch from the soul,
thus men who seek its restriction
seek naught but their own restriction;
they cage the bird who'd set them free
from their own petty bondage
within their hearts' deep confines,
wherefrom a long-since silenced voice
cries out in shrill dissatisfaction.

Indeed, to stop the music
unbecomingly leads to conflict
of the self and what the self could be —
if only you would loose the chains
that tightened fast around your neck
and faster 'round your heart,
and by singing be set free!