Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

A musician once, in the twilight time,
Musing sat by the instrument
Whose keys knew how, with a kindred chime,
To interpret to him what his musings meant.
Then a picture, the man had seen that day
And, because of its colour or composition,
Had, deep in the soul of him, borne away,
Unmiss'd, from its place in the Exhibition,
Began to suffer a mystic change,
And pass from the soul where its own lay pent
On the wings of a melody wild and strange;
Which, as 'twere in a dream, his fingers went
Wandering after, over the keys;
Whose notes were thus scatter'd, and then again blent
Till the twilight was fill'd with the music of these.

2.

But when, like a wind from a land unknown,
That comes and goes with a will of its own,
The strain died out, and left, as it died,
The throbbing silence unsatisfied,
A friend of the player's who, listening, sat
In that twilight chamber beside him, cried
With a sigh, “Continue!” “Continue what?
I have not been playing,” the player replied,
“But only thinking—ah, thinking? nay,
But rather dreaming all thought away
About a picture I saw to-day.”
“Strange!” said the other; “and whilst unto thee
I was listening, just ere thy music fainted,
A poem impress'd itself on me,
As clear as a picture freshly painted.
Farewell, ere I lose it!” Then home went he,
And wrote the poem to which that strain
Had changed itself in the poet's brain.

3.

This poem another painter read;
And it haunted that other painter's head,
Till of it another picture he made;
Which, like the first, was exhibited.

4.

When, after many a year was past,
Those pictures twain were uphung at last
Side by side on the self-same wall
Of the same museum, they did not fall
Into the arms of each other, the one
Crying “My father!” the other “My son!”
Tho' in line direct was their filiation.
But, like two athletes, they struggled and fought
Against each other without cessation.
And men, taking part in the contest, brought
Daily, to deepen it, fresh contestation.
Critic and craftsman, with praise or blame,
Choosing their side in the battle, became,
These the passionate partisans
Of the style of the earlier master; those
Of the style of the later; until two clans
Of disciples, two schools of art, arose,
Which, in turn, put forth for the world's applause
Masterpieces of different kinds;
The unlike effects of a single cause,
One force transmitted thro' many minds.

5.

For, tho' none of the critics of this was aware,
And not even the craftsmen the secret knew,
Yet all these pictures the offspring were
Of a single picture—the first of the two.