University of Virginia Library

BOCHSA.

I knew an old man, Bochsa was his name,
Fresh from the Mountain Morning Land, who came
Into this Western Evening Land to charm us
With his rich oversoul of musical lore—
His polysongs of many sounds—tones learnt
Not from the voices of the birds on earth,
Nor any human speech—but heard in dreams—
In interlunar swoons, when his rapt soul
Drank inspiration, in the calm of night,
Out of the crystalline bubbling Wells of God,
Baptising us with dews of spiritual peace;
From his reminiscences of the life
He lived in Adam, when the World was young,
And he was happy in the love of God;
From Voices of the Nebilungen Land—
From the influx of God's life into his soul—
(Which was the fire Prometheus stole from Heaven—)
Burning therein rich songs of living fire,
Like those the Seraphim heard at Eden's Gates,
When the bright Morning Stars together sang,
And all the Sons of God shouted for joy.
That which the Ages waited long to see,
But had no eyes to see, nor ears to hear,—
Sounds which no other man had ever heard—
Tones rained down from the rolling of the spheres
In their swift Cycles round the Sun in Heaven—
Silence to all but to the Angel's ears—
He brought down from the Pre-existent State,
And scattered here on earth in showers of Pearls—
Making our souls rich with divine delights.
For God had couched his eyes to see—his ears
To hear—that which no other man could see
Or hear—but the great Seraphim in Heaven;
Therefore, he had received from God the power
To teach Mankind what Angels know above.
For when his trembling fingers swept the strings,
An Æolian thunder rolled out of each chord,
Like that which wells out of the heart of man
When God first sets his soul on fire with love—
As if an Angel's wing, in flight, had swept
The golden strings of some Celestial Lyre
Hung in the doors of Heaven—making us feel
Like that first rigor of the fervent heart,
When Beauty, for the first time in our lives,
Trances us, with the madness of pure joy,
Out of this world into the bliss of Heaven—
Regaling our rapt soul with sweetest peace.
For as the warm South feels when the North wind blows
Over his Ocean of transparent calm,
Waking, upon his sunny Sea of Peace,
Blue waves of cold, chilling us to the bone;
So did his gushes of Æolian song,
As if rained down from some Empyreal sphere,
Diffuse themselves through all our thrilling frames,
Chilling us with the instinct of new power—
Until, by feeding on the Bread of Heaven,
We grew transformed into the food we ate,
Assuming here on earth the life divine
The Angels live in Heaven—pure melody.
Then, when he did subdue his tender tones,
They fell as softly on our listening ears,
Burning our souls with rapture far too deep
For either words or tears—as when God's love,
In inspiration, overflows some Poet's soul,
Lifting him on the wings of thought to Heaven—
Making sonorous thunders of rich rhythm
Follow the lightning-wake of his swift Pen,
Tracing his Orphic immortality
Upon his golden pages—never to die.
At other times, with alternations swift,
With his right hand, as once Prometheus did,
He plucked from off the Altar of God's love,
Clothing our souls with vestments of pure joy,
The living coals of that immortal fire
Whose embers are the life of all the world—
Scattering the scintillations down on earth,
Like lightning-pearls, or whitest Diamond-dust
Tinctured with lucid Rubies pure as thought,
Into the hungry souls of all who heard,
Ravishing them out of this poor, mortal life
Into that ecstacy of endless peace
Known only to the souls who live in Heaven.
The rapt intensity of God-like calm
Which tranced his features, sealed him to the spot,
Causing his upturned face to glow with joy,
Bright as Hyperion rising in the East
To overflow the world with living joy—
Told that Christ's love was anchored in his heart:
While from his fingers' ends the dews of sound
Dript, changing into Jewels as they fell,
Bright as stalactites of crystal hung
In the Enchanted Caverns of the Nymphs.
The lucid, liquid, silvery touch of his
Soft fingers drew from out the strings such notes
As only follow from an Angel's hand—
Whose music seemed to run down from his soul
And crystalize itself thereon in sparkling tones
Of multicolored Jewels pure as love,
And perfect as those twelve Foundation-stones
Set in the Temple of the Living God.