Слике страница
PDF
ePub

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

naught;

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 naught, 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 perfect

round.

10.

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

exist;

Not its likeness, 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.

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: 't is 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 awhile the heights I rolled from into the

deep;

Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place

is found,

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

RABBI BEN
Ꭱ Ꭺ Ᏼ Ᏼ I Ᏼ Ꭼ N

Ꭼ Ꮓ Ꭱ Ꭺ .
Ꮓ Ꭺ

« ПретходнаНастави »