The Poetical Works of Robert Browning

And here's your music all alive once more—
As once it was alive, at least: just so
The figured worthies of a waxwork-show
Attest—such people, years and years ago,
Looked thus when outside death had life below,
—Could say “We are now,” not “We were of yore,”
—“Feel how our pulses leap!” and not “Explore—
Explain why quietude has settled o'er
Surface once all-awork!” Ay, such a “Suite”
Roused heart to rapture, such a “Fugue” would catch
Soul heavenwards up, when time was: why attach
Blame to exhausted faultlessness, no match
For fresh achievement? Feat once—ever feat!
How can completion grow still more complete?
Hear Avison! He tenders evidence
That music in his day as much absorbed
Heart and soul then as Wagner's music now.
Perfect from centre to circumference—
Orbed to the full can be but fully orbed:
And yet—and yet—whence comes it that “O Thou”—
Sighed by the soul at eve to Hesperus—
Will not again take wing and fly away
(Since fatal Wagner fixed it fast for us)

227

In some unmodulated minor? Nay,
Even by Handel's help!

University of Virginia Library

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