Behind the Arras | Page 8

to string,?Bidding the discords drown,?The harmonies spring,
Where tides and tide-winds rove?Far out from land,?On the ocean of music a-move?At the will of his hand.
Sobbing and grieving now,?Now glad as a bird,?Thou, thou, thou?Of the joys unheard,
Luminous radiant sea?Of the sounds and time,?Surely, surely by thee?Is eternal prime.
Holy and beautiful deep,?Spread down before?The imperial coming of sleep,?Endure, endure!
And sleep, be thou the ranger?Over it wan.?And dream, be thou no stranger?There with the dawn.
Then wings of the sun, go abroad?As a scarlet desire,?Unwearied, unwaning, unawed,?To quest and aspire,
Till the drench of the dusk you drink?In the poppy-field west;?Then veer and settle and sink?As a gull to her nest.
Wind,?Away, away!?And hurry your phantom kind?Through the gates of day,
Or ever the king's dark cup?With its studs and spars?Be inverted, and earth look up?To the shuddering stars.
Blaring and triumphing now,?Now quailing and lone,?Thou, thou, thou?Of the joys unknown!
Unknown and wild, wild,?Where the merrymen be,?Sink to sleep, soul of a child,?Slumber, thou sea!
All this his fiddle plays,?And many a thing?As strange, when his mood so lays?The bow to the string.
Sleepless! He never sleeps?That I can find.?I marvel how he keeps?A bit of his mind.
There is neither sight nor sound?In the world of sense,?But he has fathomed and found?In the silvery tense
Keen cords on the amber wood.?As he wrings them thence,?Death smiles at his hardihood?For recompense.
Oh fair they are, so fair!?No tongue can tell?How he sets them chiming there?Clear as a bell.
An orchard of birds in June,?The winds that stream,?The cold sea-brooks that croon,?The storms that scream,
The planets that float and swing?Like buoys on the tide,?The north-going legions in spring,?The hills that abide,
The frigate-bird clouds that range,?The vagabond moon--?That wilful lover of change--?And the workaday sun,
Dying summer and fall,?Seasons and men?And herds, he has them all?In his shadowy ken.
He calls and they come, leaving strife,?Leaving discord and death,?Out of oblivion to life,?Though its span be a breath.
There they are, all the beautiful things?I loved and lost sight of?Long since in the far-away springs,?Come back for a night of
New being as good as their old,?Aye, better in fact,?For somehow he gilds their fine gold,--?Gives the one thing they lacked,
The breath, aspiration, desire,?Core, kindle, control,?Memory and rapture and fire,--?The touch of man's soul.
How know the true master? I know?By my joys and my fears,?For my heart crumbles down like the snow?With spring rain into tears.
Now I am a precious one!?With nothing to do?But idle here in the sun?And gossip with you
Of a stranger you have not seen,?As like never will.?I would every soul had a screen,?When the wind sets ill
In the world's bleak house, like this?Strange lodger of mine.?His presence is worse to miss?Than sun's best shine.
I put no thought at all?Upon the end,?If only I may call?Such a man friend.
And a friend he is, heart light?With love for heft,?Proud as silence, whose right?Hand ignores his left.
Yes, odd! he gives his name?As Spiritus.?But that is vague as a flame?In the wind to us.
And then (but not a breath?Of this!) you see,?All his effects, my faith!?Are marked D.V.
His cape-coat has a rip,?But for all that,?(Folk smile, suggest a dip?In the dyer's vat,--
Those purple aldermen?Who roll about?In coaches, drive till ten,?And die of gout),
I think he finely shows?How learning's crumbs?At least can rival those?Of-- 'st, here he comes!
_Beyond the Gamut_
Softly, softly, Niccolo Amati!?What can put such fancies in your head??There, go dream of your blue-skied Cremona,?While I ponder something you have said.
Something in that last low lovely cadence?Piercing the green dusk alone and far,?Named a new room in the house of knowledge,?Waiting unfrequented, door ajar.
While you dream then, let me unmolested?Pass in childish wonder through that door,--?Breathless, touch and marvel at the beauties?Soon my wiser elders must explore.
Ah, my Niccolo, it's no great science?We shall ever conquer, you and I.?Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder,?Others guess not half that we descry.
As all sight is but a finer hearing,?And all color but a finer sound,?Beauty, but the reach of lyric freedom,?Caught and quivering past all music's bound;
Life, that faint sigh whispered from oblivion,?Harks and wonders if we may not be?Five small wits to carry one great rhythmus,?The vast theme of God's new symphony.
As fine sand spread on a disc of silver,?At some chord which bids the motes combine,?Heeding the hidden and reverberant impulse,?Shifts and dances into curve and line,
The round earth, too, haply, like a dust-mote,?Was set whirling her assigned sure way,?Round this little orb of her ecliptic?To some harmony she must obey.
Did the Master try the taut string merely,?Give a touch, and she must throb to time??Think you how his bow must rouse the echoes,?Quailing triumphing on, secure, sublime!
Ah, thought cannot far without the symbol!?Help me, little brother, hold the trend.?Dear good flesh, that keeps the spirit steady,?Lest it faint, grown dizzy at thought's end!
Waves of sound (Is this your thought, Amati?),?Climbing into treble thin and clear,?Past the silence,