1868. "So that the wonder struck the crowd, Who shouted it about the land: His work, a singing with his hand!" VI. TO RICHARD WAGNER. "I SAW a sky of stars that rolled in grime. All glory twinkled through some sweat of fight, "Fierce burned the furnaces; yet all seemed well, Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills; Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess, Till thy deft mind invents me Happiness.' "And I beheld high scaffoldings of creeds Crumbling from round Religion's perfect Fane : And a vast noise of rights, wrongs, powers, needs, -Cries of new Faiths that called 'This Way is plain,' -Grindings of upper against lower greeds -Fond sighs for old things, shouts for new,-did reign Below that stream of golden fire that broke, Mottled with red, above the seas of smoke. "Hark! Gay fanfares from halls of old Romance Strike through the clouds of clamor : who be these That, paired in rich processional, advance From darkness o'er the murk mad factories Into yon flaming road, and sink, strange Ministrants! Sheer down to earth, with many minstrelsies And motions fine, and mix about the scene And fill the Time with forms of ancient mien ? 66 Bright ladies and brave knights of Fatherland; "O Wagner, westward bring thy heavenly art, No trifler thou: Siegfried and Wotan be Names for big ballads of the modern heart. Thine ears hear deeper than thine eyes can see. Voice of the monstrous mill, the shouting mart, Not less of airy cloud and wave and tree, Thou, thou, if even to thyself unknown, 1877. VII. A SONG OF LOVE. "HEY, rose, just born Twin to a thorn; Was 't so with you, O Love and Scorn? "Sweet eyes that smiled, Now wet and wild ; O Eye and Tear-mother and child. "Well: Love and Pain Be kinsfolk twain : Yet would, Oh would I could love again." 5 TO BEETHOVEN. IN o'er-strict calyx lingering, Lay music's bud too long unblown, O Psalmist of the weak, the strong, Sole Hymner of the whole of life, I know not how, I care not why,- It soothes my accusations sour 'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul: The stain of death; the pain of power; The lack of love 'twixt part and whole; The yea-nay of Freewill and Fate, The praise a poet wins too late Who starves from earth into a star; The lies that serve great parties well, While truths but give their Christ a cross; The loves that send warm souls to hell, Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace When luminous lightnings strangely strike The sailor praying on his knees And spare his mate that's cursing God; How babes and widows starve and freeze, Yet Nature will not stir a clod; Why Nature blinds us in each act No pitfall from our feet retract, No storm cry out Take shelter, friend; Why snakes that crawl the earth should ply While serpent lightnings in the sky, How truth can e'er be good for them That have not eyes to bear its strength, And yet how stern our lights condemn To know all things, save knowingness; To look with pleasure upon pain ; Though teased by small mixt social claims, To lose no large simplicity, And midst of clear-seen crimes and shames To move with manly purity; |