Other Poems (1871-82). To the Spirit of Music
I The cool grass blowing in a breeze Of April valleys sooms and sways; On slopes that dip to quiet seas Through far, faint drifts of yellowing haze. I lie like one who, in a dream Of sounds and splendid coloured things, Seems lifted into life supreme And has a sense of waxing wings. For through a great arch-light which floods And breaks and spreads and swims along High royal-robed autumnal woods, I hear a glorious sunset song. But, ah, Euterpe! I that pause And listen to the strain divine Can never learn its words, because I am no son of thine. How sweet is wandering where the west Is full of thee, what time the morn Looks from his halls of rosy rest Across green miles of gleaming corn! How sweet are dreams in shady nooks, When bees are out, and day is mute, While down the dell there floats the brook's Fine echo of thy marvellous lute! And oh, how sweet is that sad tune Of thine, within the evening breeze, Which roams beneath the mirrored moon On silver-sleeping summer seas! How blest are they whom thou hast crowned, Thy priests—the lords who understand The deep divinity of sound, And live their lives in Wonderland! These stand within thy courts and see The light exceeding round thy throne, But I—an alien unto thee— I faint afar off, and alone. II In hills where the keen Thessalonian Made clamour with horse and with horn, In oracular woods the Dodonian— The mystical maiden was born. And the high, the Olympian seven, Ringed round with ineffable flame, Baptized her in halos of heaven, And gave her her beautiful name. And Delphicus, loving her, brought her Immutable dower of dreams, And clothed her with glory, and taught her The words of the winds and the streams. She dwelt with the echoes that dwell In far immemorial hills; She wove of their speeches a spell— She borrowed the songs of the rills; And anthems of forest and fire, And passionate psalms of the rain Had life in the life of the lyre, And breath in its infinite strain. In a fair, in a floral abode, Of purple and yellow and red, The voice of her floated and flowed, The light of her lingered and spread, And ever there slipt through the bars Of the leaves of her luminous bowers, Syllables splendid as stars, And faultless as moon-litten flowers. III Lady of a land of wonder, Daughter of the hill supernal, Far from frost and far from thunder Under sons and moons eternal! Long ago the strong Immortals Took her hence on wheels of fire, Caught her up and shut their portals— Floral maid with fervent lyre. But stray fallen notes of brightness Yet within our world are ringing, Floating on the winds of lightness Glorious fragments of her singing. Bud of light, she shines above us; But a few of starry pinions— Passioned souls who are her lovers— Dwell in her divine dominions. Few they are, but in the centric Fanes of Beauty hold their station; Kings of music, lords authentic, Of the worlds of Inspiration. These are they to whom are given Eyes to see the singing stream-land, Far from earth and near to heaven, Known to gods and men as Dreamland. Mournful humanity, stricken and worn, Toiling for peace in undignified days, Set in a sphere with the shadows forlorn, Seeing sublimity dimmed by a haze— Mournful humanity wearing the sign Of trouble with time and unequable things, Long alienated from spaces divine, Sometimes remembers that once it had wings. Chiefly it is when the song and the light Sweeten the heart of the summering west, Music and glory that lend to the night Glimpses of marvellous havens of rest. Chiefly it is when the beautiful day Dies with a sound on its lips like a psalm— Anthem of loveliness drifting away Over a sea of unspeakable calm. Then Euterpe's harmonies In the ballad rich and rare, Freighted with old memories, Float upon the evening air— Float, like shine in films of rain, Full of past pathetic themes, Tales of perished joy and pain, Frail and faint as dreams in dreams. Then to far-off homes we rove, Homes of youth and hope and faith, Beautiful with lights of love— Sanctified by shrines of death. Ah! and in that quiet hour Soul by soul is borne away Over tracts of leaf and flower, Lit with a supernal day; Over Music-world serene, Spheres unknown to woes and wars, Homes of wildernesses green, Silver seas and golden shores; Then, like spirits glorified, Sweet to hear and bright to see, Lords in Eden they abide Robed with strange new majesty.
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
