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5.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the

glare and glow,

Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Pro

toplast,

Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,

Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their

liking at last;

Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,

But were back once more to breathe in an old world

worth their new:

What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall

be anon;

And what is, shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.

6.

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 pro

ceeds 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 :

7.

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that

can,

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo,

they are!

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to

man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth

sound, but a star.

Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is

nought;

It is everywhere in the world-loud, soft, and all is

said:

Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought; And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

8.

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come

too slow;

For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,

That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was

to go.

Never to be again! But many more of the kind

As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort

to me?

To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind

To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.

9.

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?

Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with

hands!

What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the

same?

Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy

power expands?

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall

- live as before;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying

sound;

What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a per

fect round.

10.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist;

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good,

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.

11.

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness 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.

12.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,-yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien
ground,

Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the

deep;

Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my restingplace is found,

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

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