32 86 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Now, the single little turret that remains By the caper overrooted, by the gourd/ Overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks -- Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced And the monarch and his minions and his dames And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey with eager eyes and yellow hair whence the charioteers caught soul When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then, When I do All the men! come, she will speak not, she will stand, On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 80 84 Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. 12 16 20 24 28 32 Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true, And our paths in the world diverged so wide, No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few Ere the time be come for taking you. 36 - But the time will come, at last it will, That body and soul so pure and gay? And your mouth of your own geranium's red 44 48 52 I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; I loved you, Evelyn, all the while. My heart seemed full as it could hold? There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep: See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret: go to sleep! 56 You will wake, and remember, and understand. ABT VOGLER. AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION. [From Dramatis Persona (1864)] 4 Would 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, 8 And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! 12 16 Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 20 And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, 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, Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) 24 Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. 28 In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, 32 For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. 36 40 44 48 52 66 60 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; 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. All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 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. 64 68 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. Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? 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; 72 On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. 76 80 84 88 92 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 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. 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. Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: 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, 96 The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep. POMPILIA ON HER DEATH-BED. [From The Ring and the Book, Bk. VII, 11. 1—128 (1869)] I am just seventeen years and five months old, Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names |