 | After Paradise or Legends of Exile |  |
43
When Adam waked, the sounds that in his dream
Dream-woven forms had worn still haunted him.
Not only to have heard them did he seem,
But even to have seen them, in a dim
Indefinite world that of life's earthly scheme
The phantom protoplast appear'd. For there
Some bliss beyond possession was the prize
Relentless wrestlers strove to seize or share;
And o'er a battle-field of boundless size
Hope and Desire with Terror and Despair,
And Love and Faith with Hate and Doubt, contended;
Importunately rolling to and fro,
In restless contradiction never ended,
A Yes reverberated by a No.
Infinite longing, infinite resistance,
Infinite turmoil! gaining now, now losing,
And then again with passionate persistance
Speeding the clamorous chase thro' vast, confusing,
Inextricable mazes; but still ever,
Beyond the strife of discords and the cry
Of conflict, with inveterate endeavour,
Tending towards a far off harmony.
Dream-woven forms had worn still haunted him.
Not only to have heard them did he seem,
But even to have seen them, in a dim
Indefinite world that of life's earthly scheme
The phantom protoplast appear'd. For there
Some bliss beyond possession was the prize
Relentless wrestlers strove to seize or share;
And o'er a battle-field of boundless size
Hope and Desire with Terror and Despair,
And Love and Faith with Hate and Doubt, contended;
Importunately rolling to and fro,
In restless contradiction never ended,
A Yes reverberated by a No.
Infinite longing, infinite resistance,
Infinite turmoil! gaining now, now losing,
And then again with passionate persistance
Speeding the clamorous chase thro' vast, confusing,
44
Beyond the strife of discords and the cry
Of conflict, with inveterate endeavour,
Tending towards a far off harmony.
And MUSIC was the name the dreamer gave
To that dream-world's mysterious sounds. In vain,
However, for long years did Adam crave
To hear, in this world, that world's sounds again.
And everywhere on earth he sought to find
Or fashion images that might express
The echoes of them lingering in his mind,
But nought resembled their mysteriousness.
To that dream-world's mysterious sounds. In vain,
However, for long years did Adam crave
To hear, in this world, that world's sounds again.
And everywhere on earth he sought to find
Or fashion images that might express
The echoes of them lingering in his mind,
But nought resembled their mysteriousness.
His sons grew up. Memorial words they wrote
On sun-dried river-reeds in cunning rhymes,
Or graved them on the rocks, that men might note
Who went before them in the after times.
He praised their scripture, but he shook his head.
“The higher language still lies out of reach,
And sweet your rhymes, my sons; but, ah!” he said
“They are not music, only sweeter speech.”
His sons took clay, and kneaded it with skill
Into the images of beasts, and men,
And gods. But “Music,” Adam murmur'd still
“In form alone I find not.” Colour then
To form they added—colour squeezed and ground
From herbs and earths—and pictures rich they wrought
Of man, his doings, and the world around.
But not in these was found what Adam sought.
“Things seen and known,” he said, “they mimic well,
But all things known and seen are, I surmise,
Themselves but pictures of invisible,
Or echoes of unheard, infinities.
Definite are words, forms, and colours, each:
Music alone is infinite.”
On sun-dried river-reeds in cunning rhymes,
Or graved them on the rocks, that men might note
Who went before them in the after times.
45
“The higher language still lies out of reach,
And sweet your rhymes, my sons; but, ah!” he said
“They are not music, only sweeter speech.”
His sons took clay, and kneaded it with skill
Into the images of beasts, and men,
And gods. But “Music,” Adam murmur'd still
“In form alone I find not.” Colour then
To form they added—colour squeezed and ground
From herbs and earths—and pictures rich they wrought
Of man, his doings, and the world around.
But not in these was found what Adam sought.
“Things seen and known,” he said, “they mimic well,
But all things known and seen are, I surmise,
Themselves but pictures of invisible,
Or echoes of unheard, infinities.
Definite are words, forms, and colours, each:
Music alone is infinite.”
46
And none
Of Adam's offspring understood that speech,
Save Jubal only. Jubal was the son
Of Lamech, whose progenitor was Cain.
His life's ancestral consciousness of death
Stretch'd each sensation to a finer strain;
Into his listening ear earth's lightest breath
An infinite mystery breath'd; in every sound
That mystery sent a message to his soul;
Nor could he rest till definite means he found
Its messengers to summon and control.
And what he sought by wistful ways unnumber'd,
Searching, at last he found in things where long
Had Music on the breast of Silence slumber'd,
Waiting his summons to awake and throng
The bronzen tubes he wrought with stops and vents,
Or shells with silver lute-strings overlaid.
When Jubal play'd upon these instruments
A visionary transport, as he play'd,
Rose in each listener and reveal'd to him
The beauty and the bliss of Paradise,
The songs and splendours of the Seraphim.
Of Adam's offspring understood that speech,
Save Jubal only. Jubal was the son
Of Lamech, whose progenitor was Cain.
His life's ancestral consciousness of death
Stretch'd each sensation to a finer strain;
Into his listening ear earth's lightest breath
An infinite mystery breath'd; in every sound
That mystery sent a message to his soul;
Nor could he rest till definite means he found
Its messengers to summon and control.
And what he sought by wistful ways unnumber'd,
Searching, at last he found in things where long
Had Music on the breast of Silence slumber'd,
Waiting his summons to awake and throng
The bronzen tubes he wrought with stops and vents,
Or shells with silver lute-strings overlaid.
47
A visionary transport, as he play'd,
Rose in each listener and reveal'd to him
The beauty and the bliss of Paradise,
The songs and splendours of the Seraphim.
Albeit these transports from a mere device
Of wind-blown pipes in order ranged arose,
Or strings that, smitten, render'd response sharp.
Of wind-blown pipes in order ranged arose,
Or strings that, smitten, render'd response sharp.
And Jubal was the father of all those
Whose hand is on the organ and the harp.
Whose hand is on the organ and the harp.
| After Paradise or Legends of Exile | |