Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Kreisler's Violin
KREISLER'S VIOLIN
KREISLER'S VIOLIN
I
Lost to all guidance save the longing of the ear,
Asleep in all save in the need to hear,
Nathless we know,
Now has begun
The 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 tune
Visions unroll, that change and change to be
But more and more the eye's felicity.
Lost to all guidance save the longing of the ear,
Asleep in all save in the need to hear,
Nathless we know,
Now has begun
The 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 tune
Visions unroll, that change and change to be
But more and more the eye's felicity.
II
Hast thou seen the far and passionless faint moon
Aloof 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 bow
Seemeth on gossamer strands invisible to weave,
Daring awhile to leave
Untouched the palpable and eager strings.
But as the thin pale disk shows dense and golden-bright
When 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 strain
Draws deeper breath, more luminously rings.
Caught up and poured upon the air again
By vibrant cord and resonant wood, it grows
To limpid splendor, glows
With argent radiance, floods and fills
With love desirous all the hollows of the slumbrous hills
Where sleeps . . . where sleeps on Latmos . . . lo! Selene slips
From her pure crescent to Endymion's lips!
Hast thou seen the shimmer of the galaxy
When 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 tread
Majestic clustered suns in measures unadorned,
Balanced, reiterate, as though they yearned
For 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 roll
In level course, nor ever set nor ever rise.
Hast thou seen the far and passionless faint moon
Aloof 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 bow
Seemeth on gossamer strands invisible to weave,
Daring awhile to leave
Untouched the palpable and eager strings.
But as the thin pale disk shows dense and golden-bright
When 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 strain
Draws deeper breath, more luminously rings.
Caught up and poured upon the air again
By vibrant cord and resonant wood, it grows
To limpid splendor, glows
With argent radiance, floods and fills
With love desirous all the hollows of the slumbrous hills
Where sleeps . . . where sleeps on Latmos . . . lo! Selene slips
From her pure crescent to Endymion's lips!
Hast thou seen the shimmer of the galaxy
When 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 tread
Majestic clustered suns in measures unadorned,
Balanced, reiterate, as though they yearned
For 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 roll
In level course, nor ever set nor ever rise.
III
Oh, unconvincing eyes that urge
The wondering ear to think this protean surge
Of beauty hath its fountain-head within
A little curvèd case by mortal skill
Built of the pine-tree's wood!
Oh, unconvincing eyes that urge
The wondering ear to think this protean surge
Of beauty hath its fountain-head within
A 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 stirs
The blossomy grass at rosy break of day,
Thus Ariel on its tremulous dulcimers
Might hear the nodding wind-flowers play.
Speak airily, this violin,
Sweetly and lightly, delicately low,
Not even Ariel could
Compel a singing whisper so;
But, dreaming where a zephyr stirs
The blossomy grass at rosy break of day,
Thus Ariel on its tremulous dulcimers
Might hear the nodding wind-flowers play.
When now the spirit that abides within
The fragile body of the violin
Spreadeth 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.
The fragile body of the violin
Spreadeth 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 know
How one and how another fingers, loud or low,
Cithern or flute or harp, or raptly sings:
Far alleluias peal as, amber, purple, crimson, pass
Angels 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 word
That 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 joys
Flow from the parted lips of Della Robbia's boys.
Great is the company of such as these,
At the magician's call who find release
From the enchanted stillness where they live
Endeavoring melodious utterance—
Until he spoke, interpretive,
Their only tongue their beauty's resonance.
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 know
How one and how another fingers, loud or low,
Cithern or flute or harp, or raptly sings:
Far alleluias peal as, amber, purple, crimson, pass
Angels 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 word
That 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 joys
Flow from the parted lips of Della Robbia's boys.
Great is the company of such as these,
At the magician's call who find release
From 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 euphony
That, after, in our temples throb and chime,
All day awake, all night adream,
Soft broken harmonies that seem
Tales that await the telling in some unfound faery clime.
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 euphony
That, after, in our temples throb and chime,
All day awake, all night adream,
Soft broken harmonies that seem
Tales 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.
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 been
That through long ages shaped and tuned the violin,
Since the swart savage, fashioning
The 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 meed
Of 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.
That through long ages shaped and tuned the violin,
Since the swart savage, fashioning
The 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 meed
Of 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 powers
Were born from the uncountable striving hours
That, pregnant of perfection, passed
Ere Italy the one that rules
With treble clarity the deeper choir
Held up to the world's ear at last,
Exultant in achieved desire!
This ever-changing, ever-sweetening thing
Of many nations' fathering,
How many names it bore!
What brother-tools
Of kindred powers
Were born from the uncountable striving hours
That, pregnant of perfection, passed
Ere Italy the one that rules
With treble clarity the deeper choir
Held up to the world's ear at last,
Exultant in achieved desire!
From that day unto this,
As through the diligent
And earlier long years, there works a potent art, intent
The gold-larynxed instrument
No 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 be
Far-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 heart
Translates from thrillèd air to be
The vivid echoings of sight,
The utmost eloquence of hope and memory.
As through the diligent
And earlier long years, there works a potent art, intent
The gold-larynxed instrument
No 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 be
Far-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 heart
Translates from thrillèd air to be
The vivid echoings of sight,
The utmost eloquence of hope and memory.
But dumb the language, dumb
The mouthpiece, until he shall come
Who, serving both, by both so servèd, wakes
From threefold artifice an animate art,—
Whose power so makes
His hand their arbiter of destinies
That only do they live when he decrees,
And only testify as he may please.
Creative thus his part
As was the lowlier labor of the multiplied unnamed
Who 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 heard
A hint of sensuous and of spiritual joys,
And, thus conceiving, brings to birth,
After long nourishment
Upon the opulent
Warm blood of human life, the music that must then demand
Its re-creation at the player's hand.
The mouthpiece, until he shall come
Who, serving both, by both so servèd, wakes
From threefold artifice an animate art,—
Whose power so makes
His hand their arbiter of destinies
That only do they live when he decrees,
And only testify as he may please.
Creative thus his part
As was the lowlier labor of the multiplied unnamed
Who 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 heard
A hint of sensuous and of spiritual joys,
And, thus conceiving, brings to birth,
After long nourishment
Upon the opulent
Warm blood of human life, the music that must then demand
Its 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 flow
Of shining tides that break forever on the strand
Where Beauty rose from floods of harmony;
Play us the mirth
Of 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 player, with thy tressèd bow
Touch, touch, and ope once more
The plangent door
Impenetrable save to thee!
Beyond, make audible the flow
Of shining tides that break forever on the strand
Where Beauty rose from floods of harmony;
Play us the mirth
Of 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, move
The 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 sees
Young life and love and passion's sweet desirabilities.
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, move
The 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 sees
Young 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 needs
The manna of its strong delight the music feeds.
Though he but hear
Rapture 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 attune
To 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 feet
To hilltops murmurous with promises divine,
To skyey pinnacles where dream-lights of fruition shine.
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 needs
The manna of its strong delight the music feeds.
Though he but hear
Rapture 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 attune
To 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 feet
To 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 heard
August vibration of the all-creative Word:
When the deep chorus of the orchestra sustains,
Swift, powerful, of mystic strains
The rush supernal, lifted from the earth and set apart
From boundaries of time, trembling we stand
Amid 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 await
The 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 behold
The burning countenance of the Unknown.
1910.
And tongues of splendors of known things, there may be heard
August vibration of the all-creative Word:
When the deep chorus of the orchestra sustains,
Swift, powerful, of mystic strains
The rush supernal, lifted from the earth and set apart
From boundaries of time, trembling we stand
Amid 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 await
The 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 behold
The burning countenance of the Unknown.
1910.