Iv

"Come, oh, come! No longer shall language be dumb! Thy vision shall grasp-- As one doth the glittering hasp Of a dagger made splendid with gems and with gold-- The wonder and richness of life, not anguish and hate of it merely. And out of the stark Eternity, awful and dark, Immensity silent and cold,-- Universe-shaking as trumpets, or thunderous metals That cymbal; yet pensive and pearly And soft as the rosy unfolding of petals, Or crumbling aroma of blossoms that wither too early,-- The majestic music of Death, where he plays On the organ of eons and days."

Music

Thou, oh, thou! Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow! Music, who by the plangent waves, Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves, Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars, Touchest reverberant bars Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;-- Keeping regret and memory awake, And all the immortal ache Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days In retrospection!--now, oh, now, Interpreter and heart-physician, thou, Who gazest on the heaven and the hell Of life, and singest each as well, Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips, Or thy melodious lips, This sickness named my soul, Making it whole, As is an echo of a chord, Or some symphonic word, Or sweet vibrating sigh, That deep, resurgent still doth rise and die On thy voluminous roll; Part of the beauty and the mystery That axles Earth with song; and as a slave, Swings it around and 'round on each sonorous pole, 'Mid spheric harmony, And choral majesty, And diapasoning of wind and wave; And speeds it on its far elliptic way 'Mid vasty anthemings of night and day.-- O cosmic cry Of two eternities, wherein we see The phantasms, Death and Life, At endless strife Above the silence of a monster grave.

Jotunheim