XXVIII. Hugues! I advise med pœnâ (Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon) Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena! XXIX. While in the roof, if I 'm right there, Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there! 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? 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, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed 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, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 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, 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, 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; 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? X. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 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: 90 Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, IV. Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, blind and green they grope IO Among the honey-meal and last, V. The champaign with its endless fleece VI. Such life here, thro' such lengths of hours, VII. How say you? Let us, O my dove, 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! 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, Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose |