XIII Yet a semblance of resource avails us Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, 1 Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. He who writes, may write for once as I do. XIV 130 Love, you saw me gather men and women, Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even ! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better ! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses 2 when he climbed the mountain ? Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, When they ate and drank and saw God also! Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, ABT VOGLER AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORISING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demon that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly, alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed, Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! 8 Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, 40 All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled: : 48 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by. 80 Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt 17 And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know. 88 Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. |