Fiddler's Farewell/Fiddler's Farewell
Fiddler's Farewell
Fold now the song within the songster.Small sturdy one,Roistering down the centuries,Drunk with the fiddlers' fingers,(Never a dearth of these,The living crowding where the dead have been),Pure promiscuous dandled violin!
Cæsar of sound, my songs in passing, cry,Morituri te salutamus!—and passing, die.
Fold now the song away.Close the lid downUpon the gradual dismayOf disconcerted singing,Unloose the fingers' clingingThat has so lost its cunning,Turn from the faltering renown,Fame of the little townAfter the flag-hung city;Deny the ruin pity!
Pity? Yes, for the failing songThat like a droughty stream Crawls, dripsOver an arid land,(Yet deep enough to drown)—O violin that slipsFrom the relinquishing hand,Brown brightness hid—Let fall the incurious lid.***Let me find wordsWith which to sing of silence,Better than all this blurred half-soundOf tattered music trailing on the ground,(That was a banner in the wind),WordsAnd their pacing prideFor the frustrated heart,That stoic singer in the side,Unviolined!
Be not afraid,My songs, my full-throats,Be not stampeded into muffled herds,Mouthing and terrified—O fierce white music that I made,Proud notes,Chords, choirs of taut tuned strings,And slender strengthOf bow that was a bough;Tread this last length Of singing, mellow and muted, staid,Pass unbewildered nowWith this processional of rhymed recording words.Be not afraid.***What is a violin?Who shall reveal this mystery of thinVibrating wood?Of forest voices multi-voiced—Wind, rain, on many leaves,Bent branches moaning underThe crash of clouds that meet,The cool pale hiss of snow?And birds?And pattering furry feet?(Young cries along the leaves!)All musics and all seasonsSeeping and soaking in,Into the very coreOf the green budOf destined fiddle-wood—Long long beforeThe master-mind conceives,The hand achievesThe carven whole,The curving sides, the twisted scroll,Shapes it and stains it to this red russet thingOf expectant string,Names it, invests it With its adolescent voice,Fondles it, fingers it,Breasts it!
How light it seems,Swinging between the abdicating finger and thumb,How frail this unbarred strongholdOf sweet gold—All fortunes and all raptures and all dreams—Kind horn of plenty!And who shall count the glittering sum?***Words for my fiddle now,Abundance of goodly words:My deft, my dear,My witty oneWith your brave answer ever ready,My box of birds,Crony and hearty,Winged hubbub,Tool,And tear—
Fiddler, fiddle,To leave you lying here!
What then?Stand stripped of music?Resolutely attainA dull and obdurate ear For the blithe hurricane?Shiver, and gather closer these aphonous ragsLike a beggar's coat;Shut the bland thunder out?
Acknowledge silence—But what if there be none?What if all sound go sounding on and onUpon a loftier air,The green note and its fellowRoused to a greener loudnessForever lifting there?
Let me declareThat music never dies;That music never dies.Let me in potent mood createOf this my fantasy a faith,A little paradiseImmaculate,True as the tested string is true,For all the lovely criesOf all the violins—And of mine too!***In timeA stranger with the supple fiddler's hand,And the rapt eyeThat sees the sound sublime,Will come, (Must come, I wish it so!)To coax these stagnant strings,Kindle their numbAnd awful apathy with one imperative blowOf the fleet accurate bow;Release the fiddle-cry.
O faithless—Faithful only to sound,(That loud-lipped passer-by),You will forget straightwayThe player for the player;And both for the tune you play!
In time I too shall turnTo others' music,Shall learnA niggardly delightIn some slightLord of nimble fingersTossing me sops of song;The longAnd measured wisdom of wide symphoniesWill find me listening;A singer, a child's hand on the candid keys,A whistle on the wing:All these!
I'll not disdain the fineAnd effervescent draught,Filling the echoing cup (That was so full!)With others' wine.I'll not refuse to drink.
But firstI must know thirst.
So must this violin of mine,I think.***How still it lies;An empty shell along the empty sandIs not more still;But put your handTo the shining thingAs music passes!Do you feel the quickeningOf the languid wood?Come, lay your earTo the shell—
Heart, leaning near,So near—
Do you hearThe stirring and the throbbingAbove your tuneless sobbing?
