University of Virginia Library

Prologue.

APOLOGIA PRO ARTE MEÂ.

Others ask me why I sing
In the shine and shadowing
Night and day,
On my way,
With my hand upon the string;
I will say,
I will say—
Just because it is my way;
Not that everywhere I mark,
As I may,
In the dawning and the dark
Of green earth and scarlet sky,
Mystery,
Mystery,
And a strange immortal spark,
In the clod as in the planet,
Glowing since its God began it;
Not that ever more I see
All around,
All enwound,
Blade of grass and honey bee,
Butterfly and blasted tree,
As I strike
On my lute strings, all alike,
With the margin of a bliss
Sweeter than the Father's kiss,
And a terror's black abyss,
Madly blent
In a white
Fire of holy wonderment—
Infinite,
Infinite.
This I do behold in all,
In the bridal and the pall,
Smile and tear,
Life and death,
Shriek of tempest, baby's breath—
Noting beauty, joy and fear,
In the wooing
Of the love,
And the cooing
Of the dove,
In the birds,
That their little duties ply,
Winged words,
If they only call and cry;
As in Nature,
At full stature,
With her grand hypocrisy.
Some do flout my silver song,
Deem it tedious, deem it long,
Deem it over smooth and weak,
With its purling
Course and curling
Circuits through all lands and times,
With the messages I speak
In my own too rapid rhymes.
But I dare not, cannot stay
Though in play
Once, to linger
With a rose
Or a poppy,
When a finger
Mars its redness or repose,
And I tamely will not copy
What my heart does not disclose.
I must go my easy way,
And my own true teaching say,
Though a thousand thunder nay
Or contemn
And condemn
All my many tinkling notes
And see nothing still but motes
In my every rhyme or ray—
Just because it is my way,
Is my way,
Is my way.
For indeed I know no other
Better plan,
And I never had a brother,
Born of man.
And my heart yet will not smother
Music learnt of winds and brooks,
(Not of books)
And must warble what it can.
Others yield to custom's tie,
Rest in any silken lie—
I must sing, or I shall die.
Is it instinct or obtuseness,
Art or shoddy,
Fraud or truth,
But I do believe in body,
And the rich and ripe profuseness
Of a warm, full blooded youth,
Plump and real,
Not a marble cold ideal.
And exuberance in woman
Never yet has found a foeman,
Never will,
Never shall,
At the fast or festival,
In the fight or funeral,
While old love retains the skill
Chief in woman,
And the beating heart is human.
Ah, abundance is no fault;
Its totality
(Not a swinish animality
Where we are agreed to halt)
Is its favour
And its beauty,
And without it were as salt
Which has lost its saving savour
And its duty.
The diffuseness of my song
Does no wrong,
Has no harm,
Is its glory and its charm,
Is its beauty and its strength,
And the ease that comes at length
(Only late,
Fair as fate)—
Is the final grace of art,
And perfection of each part
With the flowering of the heart;
Though this power,
In the hand
Not accustomed to command
Or to prune,
May be still a deadly dower
And make discord in the tune.
If my singing errs as such,
Is too much,
'Tis because I love the latitude
Of the boundless air and sea
And the rolling prairie lea,
Not one attitude
Stiff and starved,
As if carved
Out of stone,
Nor one tone;
I want room wherein to range
Up and down
Field and town,
Chance and change,
Ocean billows
Where the petrels hang and play,
Purple pillows
In the old night's starry day.
As the moorland breezes blow,
Breezes blow
Over miles of fragrant heather,
Where the blue bells nod together;
As the rippling waters flow,
Waters flow,
Through the pastures' daisied sweep
To the deep,
To the deep;
As the birdies wave their wing
And make woods with music ring,
Music ring,
In an ecstasy of trust,
All and each because they must;
So I sing,
So I sing,
In the poetry of trust,
For I must,
For I must.
Passion like a leaping fire,
Tears that start
From my heart,
Heaven's delight and earth's desire,
Bid my art
Play a part,
Seize its lute and strike the strings,
Till the sleeping thoughts and things
Which of miracle partake
Born in melody awake—
Lisping leaves,
Rustling sheaves,
Brooks that babble,
Girls that dabble
Feet of snow in kissing waves
Falling at those feet like slaves.
Blushing roses'
Red reposes,
Lilies' anguish
As they languish,
Bleeding under
Bees that plunder
Them of gold
They withhold,
And the yellow nectar dust,
Unto which they climb and cling,
These I worship, these I sing,
For I must.
For I must.
O, the method is the man—
Is the man,
And I cannot change my plan
Foul or fair,
For it is the very air
Which I breathe,
And wherein my fancies wreathe
Or array themselves in light,
And in shade;
Nor in borrowed robe or right,
Would I ever, if I might
With false trappings masquerade.
Yes, my manner
Is my banner,
It means more,
It is I.
Whether darkly soaring high,
Or with vague and venturous prow
On a far untravelled shore,
Touching, just to pay some vow
As no pilgrim paid before;
Dropping now
Into coy forbidden nooks,
Where no prying sunbeam looks.
Well I know there may be others,
Sisters, brothers,
Who uplift a loftier voice
And possess a larger choice,
And in liberty rejoice
To be silent or to sing.
I am one,
Who have none;
But, as blossoms in the spring
At the waft of warmer air
And new times,
Rush to resurrection fair,—
So my spirit chants and chimes
And upon the sunbeam stair
Romps in rhymes
To and fro,
As the living currents go,
Ever bound to sing and fly
From a sweet necessity.
Others wander as they will,
As they will,
Like the straying of a stream
Now in vigil, now in dream,
With the pride of scornful skill,
Through the vista of the valley,
Here asleep, there with a sally
Rioting,
Murmuring
Musically,
In the most approved of measure,
At their pleasure.
But they feel no higher law
Than their own,
Not the awe
Of the unseen and unknown
In the study of a straw,
And bestrown
With the stardust, and the grace
Like a world
All upcurled
In a tiny dewdrop's face;
And for their capricious course
They admit no deeper source
Than some dim,
Devious whim,
Not a budding revelation's
Obligations.
But I hear the calling, calling
And I feel the thralling, thralling
Of the Powers
Sweet as flowers,
Soft as showers
On green bowers,
Drawing, guiding,
Cheering, chiding,
With a beautiful revulsion
From this vulgar rack and wrong,
By a dear supreme compulsion,
Flooding me with silver song
And a glamour and a glow,
Till the flame
Without name
Must in music overflow.
What the secret Voices fling
From their lonely sacred summits,
What the Silences may bring
Deeper than the deepest plummets,
Mirth and madness,
Love and sadness,
Tears of gladness,
Mist on mountains,
Fire of fountains,
God Refiner,
Man diviner,
Breasts that no man
Kissed on woman,
Insect's wing,
Lips of scarlet,
Hair all starlit,
Uncrowned king,
These I sing,
These I sing.
Others step aside and play
By the way
Night and day;
Others yield to lower lust,
Baser strife,
Wallowing in din and dust
And red wrong
Loved too long;
But the point of passion's knife
Never more allowed to rust,
At my breast
With unrest
But anointed,
Still is pointed.
And I own the stormy gust,
As I feel the yearning strong,
Ripe and rife,
With a doubt sublime as trust;
While the singing is my life,
And the living is my song,
So I babble what I must,
What I must,
What I must.