Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Kreisler's Violin
KREISLER'S VIOLIN
KREISLER'S VIOLIN
ILost to all guidance save the longing of the ear,Asleep in all save in the need to hear, Nathless we know, Now has begunThe miracle-working of the slender bow,How touches of cool water through the fingers run,How thickets of the Maytime paradisal odors yield;There blows a breath from childhood's cloverfield; And on the swaying tapestry Of iris-colored tone and tuneVisions unroll, that change and change to beBut more and more the eye's felicity.
IIHast thou seen the far and passionless faint moonAloof in the high dome of afternoon? No orbèd world, no sister to the solid spheres,But on the solid blue a film of snow, On azure seas a nautilus sail,Than the small drifting cloud more frail And more imponderable she appears,As floats some tenuous melody the bowSeemeth on gossamer strands invisible to weave, Daring awhile to leaveUntouched the palpable and eager strings.But as the thin pale disk shows dense and golden-brightWhen the dusk comes and the red sunset is alight,As it shines clarion-clear and silver-white Riding the purple arches of midnight, So the dim strainDraws deeper breath, more luminously rings.Caught up and poured upon the air againBy vibrant cord and resonant wood, it grows To limpid splendor, glowsWith argent radiance, floods and fillsWith love desirous all the hollows of the slumbrous hillsWhere sleeps . . . where sleeps on Latmos . . . lo! Selene slipsFrom her pure crescent to Endymion's lips! Hast thou seen the shimmer of the galaxyWhen the metallic notes fall glitteringly,Sparkles of gold by wing-tips of melodic swiftness shed?Hast thou known the prouder afflux, arc on arc,Of greater and more fervid stars mounting the fervent dark!— Altair and crystal Sirius,Vega the sapphire and Aldebaran stormy red, Alcyone, Antares, Regulus, Mira, Denebola—the magic of the name, The lustre of the flame, The soaring of the music, one, the same.Then slower still and mightier the celestial pathway treadMajestic clustered suns in measures unadorned,Balanced, reiterate, as though they yearnedFor the immutable of motion; and outspread Above the world's high crest, Where is not east or west,They find the heavens of their desire: Polaris hangs o'erhead, A central fire, And round and round the bowl Of adamantine skies,Choiring unalterably, the constellations rollIn level course, nor ever set nor ever rise.
III Oh, unconvincing eyes that urgeThe wondering ear to think this protean surgeOf beauty hath its fountain-head withinA little curvèd case by mortal skill Built of the pine-tree's wood!
Hearken again! When that it will Speak airily, this violin, Sweetly and lightly, delicately low, Not even Ariel could Compel a singing whisper so; But, dreaming where a zephyr stirsThe blossomy grass at rosy break of day,Thus Ariel on its tremulous dulcimersMight hear the nodding wind-flowers play.
When now the spirit that abides within The fragile body of the violinSpreadeth its pinions and cries dauntlessly,Trumpet nor fife could brace the heart to see More surely compassed victory.Yet tender can it once more make its touch To press, to press not overmuch,The chords of pathos that lie near to pain,By its caresses to bring comforting again.
Idyl and pastoral Of nest and leafy tree it hath in store, The pibrochs of the windy rain, The lulling strain Of rivulet and waterfall.And oft it speaks in music never writ, Nor heard before,But fancy-feigned upon fair mouth or instrument Devised to seem to utter it—Music implicit in the carven stone, the mellow paint, Where seraph, minstrel, virgin saint, Or infant innocent, Laudeth true love or heavenly things.By the sole witness of this violin we knowHow one and how another fingers, loud or low,Cithern or flute or harp, or raptly sings:Far alleluias peal as, amber, purple, crimson, passAngels awakened in the pictured glass;Slim portal guardians from the gray mid-ages lift the voice Of meek beatitude; Titian, Bellini,Imaged this treble gladness where rejoice,Adoringly, their half-divine bambini;Giorgione's plumed singer finds the wordThat answers to the monk's clear harpsichord; Vocal in turn are all the rich-robed figures of the choir Van Eyck beheld as once they tried, Bent-browed and earnest-eyed, To follow higher, higher,The leading of the organ pipes; and sweetly sacred joysFlow from the parted lips of Della Robbia's boys.Great is the company of such as these,At the magician's call who find releaseFrom the enchanted stillness where they live Endeavoring melodious utterance— Until he spoke, interpretive,Their only tongue their beauty's resonance.
Nor is there haunted spot Of old romance Wherein this player gleaneth not New wealth of dulcet jouissance. Up from Miranda's seabeach blown, From out Armida's garden, From Eden, Arcady, or Arden(He with his viol standing there alone),Even unto us there comes a thrill, a witchery, Of such ebullient euphonyThat, after, in our temples throb and chime, All day awake, all night adream, Soft broken harmonies that seemTales that await the telling in some unfound faery clime.
IV Triune the arts that so avail, In the enchanter's small divine Alembic, lame and wine And honey—dew to gather and distill, His lyric chalices to fill And pour for our regale.
One there has beenThat through long ages shaped and tuned the violin, Since the swart savage, fashioningThe sinew-cord that his rude weapon bound, Stone head to handle, found,Sudden, a novel joy—plucked a taut string And laughed to hear it sing.Chance at the outset, but the end the meedOf exquisite labor, slowly garnered skill,Tending with happy patience the minute And accidental seed,Devoutly passing on, A hundred centuries, from sire to son, The blossoming plant of promise till The ultimate fruit Ripened at Stradivari's door.
How many shapes it wore,This ever-changing, ever-sweetening thing Of many nations' fathering, How many names it bore! What brother-tools Of kindred powersWere born from the uncountable striving hoursThat, pregnant of perfection, passed Ere Italy the one that rulesWith treble clarity the deeper choirHeld up to the world's ear at last, Exultant in achieved desire!
From that day unto this, As through the diligentAnd earlier long years, there works a potent art, intent The gold-larynxed instrumentNo resource of the rhymèd note, the linkèd rhythm shall miss,Wherewith to wake, within the chambers of the ear, Concords the soul may willingly Leave in a lovely vagueness, uninterpreted;Nor any suasive sound by whose allure it may be led— What matter where, If but it beFar-borne from narrow precincts of its own Mortality?Nor is there rhetoric of singing vocable Or graphic tone This puissant art Denieth to the perfect tool,Weaving with metaphors mellifluous,Canorous cadences symbolic, luminous, The language of delight That the enravished heartTranslates from thrillèd air to be The vivid echoings of sight,The utmost eloquence of hope and memory.
But dumb the language, dumbThe mouthpiece, until he shall comeWho, serving both, by both so servèd, wakesFrom threefold artifice an animate art,— Whose power so makesHis hand their arbiter of destiniesThat only do they live when he decrees,And only testify as he may please. Creative thus his partAs was the lowlier labor of the multiplied unnamedWho step by step the mouthpiece framed;As is the lofty toil that in the silence of the earth, Its stridulous noise,Its gleams of tunefulness in wind and bird,In little waters and great waves, hath heardA hint of sensuous and of spiritual joys, And, thus conceiving, brings to birth, After long nourishment Upon the opulentWarm blood of human life, the music that must then demandIts re-creation at the player's hand.
V Oh player, with thy tressèd bow Touch, touch, and ope once more The plangent door Impenetrable save to thee! Beyond, make audible the flowOf shining tides that break forever on the strandWhere Beauty rose from floods of harmony; Play us the mirthOf half-gods of the waters and the earth; Play (as thy viol can) The wild-fire of the pipes of Pan;Play (we have heard it) with Apollo's hand His lyre of hyaline serenity; Make strings to cymbals and lift up(Already we have drunk of it) the Dionysian cup,That we may hear again the panthers' tread,The rustle of the vine-leaves on the sultry head.
Oh, not from only the four heart-strings of the violin, Not solely from thine empery of art,Evoke thy fingers the clairvoyance of far phantasy.Upon the subtile nerves they play that deep within The breast of nature start All vernal pulses, moveThe wings of aspiration, fill the arteries of love. The tool is but a tool, the melody But beautiful device Whereby the spirit to the spirit cries.Master of perfect speech, and more, he needs must prove— A sorcerer to generate, Poet to clarify, Hierophant to consecrate The message of emotion,—who would build Its palaces of cloud, Unveil the vistas of the sacred grove, Waken the healing springs that yield A balsam for the fevered moods Bred of the daily stress And clamor of the crowd, A cordial for the lassitudes Of loneliness,A philter to persuade the heart it newly seesYoung life and love and passion's sweet desirabilities.
VI Not alway can we name What the enkindled eye, Dazzled of wordless poesy, Beholdeth in the blowing flame, Nor alway understand, Not though we hearken hand in hand, The message as the same: To each for his own needsThe manna of its strong delight the music feeds. Though he but hearRapture of pleasure passing not the outward ear,A deep immunity of peace he still may know, Or tonic gush of energy;And if the chords within him be attuneTo the keen impact of the flowing rune, When the uplifted violin shall say, Follow! I lead the way, To farthest reach of ecstasy His soul may go— Swept by the swift multisonous beat Of winged feetTo hilltops murmurous with promises divine,To skyey pinnacles where dream-lights of fruition shine.
And farther, farther, past all language of the mortal heart,And tongues of splendors of known things, there may be heardAugust vibration of the all-creative Word:When the deep chorus of the orchestra sustains, Swift, powerful, of mystic strainsThe rush supernal, lifted from the earth and set apartFrom boundaries of time, trembling we standAmid the echoes of the wind that passed before His face Blowing the nascent stars to place Out of the hollow of His hand,The wind that, drawn into the nostrils of the man,The passionate voyagings of the soul began. Aye, power it hath, the wondrous diapason, to unfold The mysteries, elsewise inviolate, Of forces and of glories that awaitThe soul when it shall pass from life to Life, and there,Where vast low musics never-ceasingly have rolled Since the first sphere Was bid to swing In measured paths and sing, Between the pillars of His throne In radiancies ineffable beholdThe burning countenance of the Unknown. 1910.