1. ۱Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
2. ۲ Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
3. ۳Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
4. ۴ Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
5. ۵Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
6. ۶ Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
7. ۷Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
8. ۸ And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
9. ۹
10. ۱۰Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
11. ۱۱ This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!
12. ۱۲Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,
13. ۱۳ Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!
14. ۱۴And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,
15. ۱۵ Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,
16. ۱۶Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
17. ۱۷ Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
18. ۱۸
19. ۱۹And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,
20. ۲۰ Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,
21. ۲۱Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,
22. ۲۲ Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:
23. ۲۳For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,
24. ۲۴ When a great illumination surprises a festal night--
25. ۲۵Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)
26. ۲۶ Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.
27. ۲۷
28. ۲۸In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,
29. ۲۹ Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
30. ۳۰And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth.
31. ۳۱ As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
32. ۳۲Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine.
33. ۳۳ Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;
34. ۳۴Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
35. ۳۵ For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
36. ۳۶
37. ۳۷Nay more; for there wanted not who walked, in the glare and glow,
38. ۳۸ Presences plain in the place; or, fresh, from the Protoplast,
39. ۳۹Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
40. ۴۰ Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last:
41. ۴۱Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed thro' the body and gone,
42. ۴۲ But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
43. ۴۳What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
44. ۴۴ And what is,--shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
45. ۴۵
46. ۴۶All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
47. ۴۷ All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
48. ۴۸All thro' music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
49. ۴۹ Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
50. ۵۰Had I written the same, made verse--still, effect proceeds from cause,
51. ۵۱ Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
52. ۵۲It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
53. ۵۳ Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled:--
54. ۵۴
55. ۵۵But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
56. ۵۶ Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo, they are!
57. ۵۷And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
58. ۵۸ That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
59. ۵۹Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught;
60. ۶۰ It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said:
61. ۶۱Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought,
62. ۶۲ And, there! Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!
63. ۶۳
64. ۶۴Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
65. ۶۵ Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
66. ۶۶For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
67. ۶۷ That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
68. ۶۸Never to be again! But many more of the kind
69. ۶۹ As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?
70. ۷۰To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
71. ۷۱ To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
72. ۷۲
73. ۷۳Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?
74. ۷۴ Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!
75. ۷۵What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same?
76. ۷۶ Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?
77. ۷۷There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
78. ۷۸ The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;
79. ۷۹What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
80. ۸۰ On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
81. ۸۱
82. ۸۲All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
83. ۸۳ Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
84. ۸۴Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,
85. ۸۵ When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
86. ۸۶The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard.
87. ۸۷ The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
88. ۸۸Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
89. ۸۹ Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.
90. ۹۰
91. ۹۱And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
92. ۹۲ For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
93. ۹۳Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
94. ۹۴ Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?
95. ۹۵Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
96. ۹۶ Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:
97. ۹۷But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
98. ۹۸ The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
99. ۹۹
100. ۱۰۰Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
101. ۱۰۱ I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
102. ۱۰۲Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
103. ۱۰۳ Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,--yes,
104. ۱۰۴And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
105. ۱۰۵ Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep:
106. ۱۰۶Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
107. ۱۰۷ The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.