We and Bice bear the loss forever. This no artist lives and loves that longs not Once, and only once, and for One only, Ay, of all the artists living, loving, Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! He who smites the rock and spreads the Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant! Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet. Did he love one face from out the thousands, (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave,) I shall never, in the years remaining, carve you statues, Make you music that should all-express me ; So it seems I stand on my attainment. This of verse alone, one life allows me ; Verse and nothing else have I to give you. Other heights in other lives, God willingAll the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love! Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice transfigur❜d. Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Full she flar'd it, lamping Samminiato, Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splinter'd crystals ? Proves she as the pav'd-work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climb'd the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nabad and Abihu Climb'd and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the pav'd-work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that pav'dwork, When they ate and drank and saw God also! Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you. There in turn I stand with them and praise you, Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undream'd of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence. Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Drew one angel - borne, see, on my bosom. Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd press'd and importun'd to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they help'd, 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 bas'd me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. 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 rampir'd 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 reach'd, and the pride of my soul was in sight. In sight? Not half! for it seem'd it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceiv'd, obeying an impulse as I ; And the emulous heaven yearn'd down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky : Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found, but fix'd its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attain'd to heaven, there was no more near nor far. Nay more; for there wanted not who walk'd in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnish'd for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lur'd now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last ; Or else the wonderful Dead who have pass'd 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, match'd both? for I was made perfect too. All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that prais'd as its wish flow'd visibly forth, All through 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 artistlist enroll'd: : 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! Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I rear'd; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow; For one is assur'd at first, one scarce can say that he fear'd, 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 sav'd 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? 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 nought, 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. All we have will'd or hop'd or dream'd 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. Why else was the pause prolong'd but that singing might issue thence ? Why rush'd the discords in, but that harmony should be priz'd? 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. |