Violin

One night on some light errand I sat beside The cooking-stove in Johann’s sitting-room. Within there was the cheer of lamp and fire, The stove-draught yawning red and wide, The table with its rosy cotton spread, A blue chair-cover from a home-land loom, A baby’s bed. And in that odour of cleanliness and food Johann, the labourer worthy of his hire For seven days a week, twelve hours a day At some vague toil “down in the yard.” “Hard? What o’ that? Look at the luck I’ve got to keep the place And draw my pay.” He had been strong And still his body kept its ruggedness. Yet he was old and stiffened and he moved As one who is wrapped round in something thick. But O, his face, His face was like the faces that look out From bark and hole of trees all marred and grooved, All laid about With old varieties of silence and of wrong. Such faces are locked long In men, in stones, in wood, in earth, Awaiting birth. And Johann’s face was less Expectant than the happy dead awaiting to become the quick.

His wife said much about how hard she tried. She chattered high and shrill About the burden and the eating ill. His mother, little, thin, half-blind and cross, With scarlet flannel round her throat, Put in her note, Muttered about the cold, the draught, her side---- Small ineffectual chants of little loss, With never a word Of the great gossip which she had not heard: That life had passed her by. The little room beset me like the din And prick of scourges. All At once I looked upon the spattered wall And saw a violin.

A hall Vast, bright and breathing. In the upper air A chord, a flower of tone, a quiet wreathing Along the lift and fall Of some clear current in the blood Now delicately understood, Till all the hearing ones below Are where The voices call. O now they know What music is. It is that which they are Themselves. Infinite bells, Of silence in a little sheath. Deep wells Of being in a little cup. Star upon star Veiled save one reaching ray. And see! The people turn And for a breath they look Out into one another’s eyes And shine and burn Wise, wise, With ultimate knowledge of the good That seeks one whole. And how Eternity begins And ever is beginning now A thousand hearts learn from the violins.

“My back ain’t right. My head ain’t right. I’m almost dead. Fill the hot water bag. I’m goin’ to bed....” “Ten pairs of socks I’ve darned to-night. I try To do the best I can....” I put the women by. “Johann,” I said, “you play?” He shook his head. “I lost it, loggin’----” he held up a stump of thumb. “I took six lessons once,” he said. I sat there, dumb.

From out the inner place of music there had come Long long ago, Some viewless one to tell him how to know What waits upon the page To beat the rhythm of the world. He heard; and tried To stumble toward the door graciously wide For other feet than his. “I took six lessons once,” he said with pride. This Was all we gave him of his heritage.