“IN A NIGHT OF MIDSUMMER”
In a night of midsummer, on the still eastern shore of
the ocean inlet,
In our hearts a sense of the inaudible pulsings of the
unseen, infinite sea,
Suddenly through the clear, cool air, arose the voice of
a wonderful tenor; soaring and sobbing in the music of
“Otello.”
I knew that the singer was long dead; I knew well that
it was not his living voice;
And yet truly it was as the voice of a living man; tho'
heard as through a veil, still was it human; still was it
living; still was it tragic;
Still felt I the fire of the spirit of a man; I was moved
by the passion of his art; I perceived the flower and
essence of his person; the exquisite expression of his
mind and soul;
His soul it was that seized my soul, through his voice,
which was as the very voice of sorrow;
And then I thought: If man, by science and searching,
can build a cunning instrument that takes over and
keeps, beyond the term of human existence, the essence
and flower of a man's art;
If he can recreate that most individual attribute, his
articulate and musical voice, and thus the very art and
passion which that voice conveys,
Why may not the Supreme Artificer, when the human
body is utterly dissolved and dispersed, recover and keep
forever, in some new and delicate structure, the living
soul itself?
