Rainbows (Custance)/Music

by Olive Custance

For works with similar titles, see Music.

Music

 

Within the room a mist of music rising
Between my weary soul and the clamorous world.
While through the window floats another song of men's devising
From a fountain like a frail pale feather, cunningly upcurled.

That sky pomp, we call sunset, flares, slow winding
In long procession through the western gates ajar,
With pageant of plumed purple gonfalons, and blinding
Proud flash of swords, it leaves us to the twilight, and one pale star.

And now the music storms with stern persistence
The prison where my secret thoughts are shut apart,
The marching melody beats down my tired resistance
And enters through the broken doors the citadel of my heart.

So my fair friend, unconscious of the magic
Persuasion of her music, wakes a memory,
Vivid and bitter, of a dead dream sweet and tragic
That once, one blue and silver springtide, seemed possible to me.