Jubal

(Book of Genesis iv. 21.)

The Sun soon kissed to flowers, the blood-stained sod, From which the voice of Abel cried to God, And drove his murderer to the land of Nod;

And smiling, kindly watched them day by day, Till they, like Abel, died and passed away, And other flowers grew bright above their clay.

While with impartial kindness, year by year, He kissed from Cain’s curs’d face the awful tear That flowed when that dread voice appalled his ear.

Still as at night the silent woods are stirred By the lone calling of some mateless bird, Ever that voice in Cain’s sad heart was heard.

But busy hands for good or bad are best To still the aching voices of the breast, And load the body with the soul’s unrest.

So, tow’rds the Sun the City Enoch rose, Beneath Cain’s hands, as in the desert grows A palm whose shade the tawny outcast knows.

The City Enoch! from the first-born named Of the first-born of woman, son of blood! Built long ere Babel’s boastful tower was shamed, Earth’s lonely capital before the flood!

The City Enoch! here were sown and grew The seeds of Art when Art and life were long; Here Lamech turned his misery to song, Hence Jabal journeyed, seeking pastures new!

Here man’s soft hand made brass and iron yield To cunning shapes and uses,—wondrous skill! Tearing earth’s iron heart with iron will, To see what secrets in it lay concealed!

And here, O music, like a dream of heaven, Thy subtle thrills did touch the wearied brain, With raptured, passionate longing to regain The bliss of having naught to be forgiven!

Let me in fancy see thee rise again O city of the Wanderer, seldom sought! City of that wise Jubal who first taught The harp and organ to the sons of men!

That I may learn the secret of his might, Who, leaving earth unto his brother’s care, Did gentle battle with the powers of air, And made them his and ours by victor’s right!

Adah, the first-beloved of Lamech’s wives, Bare him two sons. Jabal, the eldest-born, Grew up to manhood, strong and bold and free; And leaving Enoch, sought a boundless home, Living in tents, a king amid his flocks, Setting his throne where’er his subjects thrived, Lord, or allowed vicegerent under God, Unto the “cattle on a thousand hills.”

But Jubal, wise and gentle, ’tis for thee That we would raise to life the giant shades That lived and loved, and sinned and wept and died Ere Heaven’s great tears had washed away the crime That stained the beauty of the early earth; And Enoch, mistress of primeval Art, Lay, the dead mistress of a drownèd world.

What was thy year, thy month, thy day of birth, That we may mark it in our Calendar, “On this day, in a year before the Flood, Jubal was born, Inventor of the Harp?” Where shall we seek this knowledge? Of the stars? ’Tis said by some our hearts and brains depend Upon the union in their mystic dance They happen to be forming at the hour When we are born. Then we shall ask the stars. For they may recollect the year and hour They formed that wondrous figure when the power Of music touched the soul of man For the first time, and if they can, ’Twas then that Jubal’s life began!

Sibyl-stars, that sing the chorus Of the life that lies before us As we open mortal eyes! Strange phrenologists of Heaven, That infuse the spirit-leaven Into nascent, infant brains, That can make them dull or wise, Forging subtle mental chains That must bind us until death, As ye calmly glitter o’er us, When we draw our primal breath! Mixing qualities together, Just according to the weather, Just according to the season, And the point of daily time, Noon or even, night or morn, That we happen to be born, For some sage, sidereal reason, Which some sophomores call “chance,” Some the “force of circumstance!” Tell, O fatal stars, sublime, What the swelling of the chime Into which you wove your dance, What the day and what the hour, Was so happy as to dower Earth with Music’s heavenly power!

Tell the day of Jubal’s birth, Day of Jubilee to earth.

Was the “music of the spheres” Audible to mortal ears? Did the winds of Heaven sing Till the forests clapped their hands? Did the ocean, heralding, Bear the tidings to all lands, Whispering, “Rejoice, rejoice,” Till the earth, unprisoning All her sounds, became a Voice? As the soaring of his wing When the distant eagle moves, Wakes to life the silent groves, At the coming of their king! Sibyl-stars, was this the way That Earth greeted Jubal’s day?

In those far shadowy years before the Flood Jubal was born, and this is all we know; Born in the land where Cain, in solitude And occupation sought to hide his woe Born with a gift, well-used, of sin the foe, A heaven-sent harbinger of promised good.

Oh! was not Adah happy in her boy? Oh! who could tell the secret of her joy, When, with a mother’s love, she pierced the veil That childhood draws round genius, lest it fail In its high aim, by adulation fed, And only feel the poison, when ’tis dead?

And Lamech, first of bards, whose kindred art Would welcome her sweet sister, watched his son As day by day he saw the promise start Towards accomplishment. Yet neither one, Father nor mother, knew as yet the prize For which they waited with such anxious eyes.

They saw that he was not of common mould: His quiet thoughtfulness, his pensive ways, His listening oft as to a story told, With side-turned head, and distant, earnest gaze, Told of some god-like purpose in his brain, Though what it was they asked themselves in vain. So Jubal grew in those far, shadowy years Before the Flood; and so the music grew Within his soul. The common air to him Was as a constant feast; its slightest touch Was joy to which all other joy was pain. The first sensations of his infancy Were blent with it. His mother’s tender sighs,— Half sighs, half laughter,—as she looked on him, Wondering what sort of man he should become, Were like the breath of angels to his ear; And when his father’s mighty voice came forth, Majestic, through its bearded doors, he hushed The tremulous beatings of his heart to hear. And when his brother Jabal went away, And there were sounds of sorrow in his home, (And he wept too, though hardly knowing why) He treasured up the sounds as precious things, Until they seemed a portion of his life.

So did he gather all the tones of love And joy and grief, by strange instinctive power; And by and by, how anger wounds the air, And all the passions of the fallen heart That Satan hissed into the ear of Eve, He sadly learned; and yet with balanced sense, His great, high gift, he traced through all the tones The woman struggling with her serpent-foe, And desperate yearnings for lost innocence.

But most he joyed to listen to the words Of happy children, respited a while, From fearful looking to the day of death; And it was Jubal’s chief delight to wed Their gladsome voices with the Eden notes To which the first sweet marriage-hymn was set— The silver-throated wooing of the birds— The trilling of the zephyr-courted leaves— The merry-hearted laughter of the brooks— The multitudinous hum of joyous life— The weird lullaby that Nature sings Unto the darlings fondled in her lap, Loving but helpless, and their low response; And all the vocal charms of summer time, That wrap the soul in dreamy, languid bliss.

All gentle sounds nestled within his heart, But not alone (though these he loved the most) Were gentle sounds the study of the boy. The mournful requiem of the dying leaves,— The piping gales that make the forest dance,— The tempest’s rage, to which the pine and oak Are but as playthings to an angry child: The rain, the whirlwind and the thundercrash,— The mountain torrent, “the vexed ocean’s roar,”— The noisy lapping of the tongues of fire,— The howl of hungry, ravenous beasts of prey,— All that is sad or mad in Nature’s voice,— All that reminds us of the awful words That pierced the fancied hiding place of sin, Ere yet the curse descended,—these he knew. For, in those giant days before the Flood, Nature and man were ever face to face, Till Art grew, Nature’s image, in man’s heart.

So Jubal revelled in all sweet, grand sounds, A seeming spendthrift, but with miser craft, Locking his airy jewels in the casket Of lovingest remembrance,—till the boy Dreamed himself into manhood.

Then there weighed Upon his brain the burden of a thought,— To bring to life the music that his soul Had gathered from the music of the world,— To make, by cunning union, every tone Of its great voice obedient to his will. And so he planned, awake, and, sleeping, dreamed Of this, his one idea; till at last ’Neath his creative hand the “Harp” was born. And then he planned again, for life was long In those far, shadowy years before the Flood, Until the “Organ,” in its mighty heart, Echoed the throbbings of the heart of man.