XXVIII.

Hugues! I advise med pœnâ

(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)

Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena!
Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ,
Blare out the mode Palestrina.

XXIX.

While in the roof, if I 'm right there,
Lo you, the wick in the socket!

Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there!
Down it dips, gone like a rocket.

What, you want, do you, to come unawares,

Sweeping the church up for first morning-prayers,

And find a poor devil has ended his cares

At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs?
Do I carry the moon in my pocket?

140

ABT VOGLER.

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION.)

W

I.

ULD 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 demons 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!

II.

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! 10 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,
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,

Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

III.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,

20

Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

IV.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;

And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the

earth,

As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

V.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, 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;

30

Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed thro' 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.

VI.

All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All thro' 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 :

40

VII.

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!

50

Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

VIII.

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

60

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

IX.

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.

X.

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.

XI.

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence

70

80

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.

XII.

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.

90

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV.

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles, blind and green they grope

IO

Among the honey-meal and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope,
I traced it. Hold it fast!

V.

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI.

Such life here, thro' such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

VII.

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

VIII.

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O' the wound, since wound must be?

IX.

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs, — your part my part In life, for good and ill.

X.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak —
Then the good minute goes.