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85
A DUET: PIANO AND VIOLONCELLO.
Dedicated to M. Laserre.
PIANO (preluding).
There is a land above the land where life
Frets the dull chains of speech, and strains the ear,
And wearies out the heart in passionate strife
With sullen fate; and there, released from fear
And doubt, and putting off the earthly veil,
The soul finds solitudes akin to those
Her infinite sadnesses; moonlit and pale
Those pathways gleam: no sun ere rose
On such receding shores; but lengthening waves
Of the soul's urgent ocean reach and break
Upon them, wailing round remembered graves
Where buried lie the hopes she did forsake.
Frets the dull chains of speech, and strains the ear,
And wearies out the heart in passionate strife
With sullen fate; and there, released from fear
And doubt, and putting off the earthly veil,
The soul finds solitudes akin to those
Her infinite sadnesses; moonlit and pale
Those pathways gleam: no sun ere rose
On such receding shores; but lengthening waves
Of the soul's urgent ocean reach and break
86
Where buried lie the hopes she did forsake.
There with an infinite utterance, more than words,
I ask those things that never life hath found
Response to; there with stricken, grieving chords,
I mourn, I weep, I pour forth the great sound
Of all the desolate groaning of my days,
Till an unearthly echo takes my soul,
Become that sound, up into loftier ways,
Where it is almost bliss to bear my dole;
Or soon the luminous cloud-work of a dream
Hath wrapt me in its frail delicious heaven;
Or, rarely, one voice, gifted it would seem
With the sole tone to blend with mine, and even
Out of its own great yearning answer me,
Hath wrought me such content through sweetest strain
Of lofty converse, that the end would be,
If not of joy, a sadness one were fain
To live and die with,—Ah, that voice again!
I ask those things that never life hath found
Response to; there with stricken, grieving chords,
I mourn, I weep, I pour forth the great sound
Of all the desolate groaning of my days,
Till an unearthly echo takes my soul,
Become that sound, up into loftier ways,
Where it is almost bliss to bear my dole;
Or soon the luminous cloud-work of a dream
Hath wrapt me in its frail delicious heaven;
Or, rarely, one voice, gifted it would seem
With the sole tone to blend with mine, and even
Out of its own great yearning answer me,
Hath wrought me such content through sweetest strain
Of lofty converse, that the end would be,
If not of joy, a sadness one were fain
To live and die with,—Ah, that voice again!
87
Thou call'st me then! and dost thou not divine
My soul hath longed for thine,
Since last in rare exalted mood we met,
And spake and sang and wept
Things we can ne'er forget,
Songs that our souls have kept,
And tears that still combine?
PIANO.
Whence com'st thou, soul that once so joyed with mine?
VIOLONCELLO.
I lingered in Vienna, dreaming still
Some rhapsodies to fill
The aching years, and lift them from their grief.
That grief, rememberest thou?
It is nor light nor brief;
Dost thou remember how
Thine own tears wrought relief?
88
Yea, grieving soul, and I would hear thee now.
VIOLONCELLO.
The thing I loved is lost for evermore!
I sing me o'er and o'er
The name thereof, and nothing answers me.
And year by year the earth,
And heaven and the sea,
Promise me nothing worth
In years that are to be.
I had a high belief that like a star
Made light for me afar,
Ruling life's cloudlands with a distant spell,
Now, or the darkness grows,
Or the star paled and fell,
And only as a vision my soul knows
That loftier thing that glorifies a day,
An hour, then fades away,—
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A soul sitting in gloom,
Uncrowned that wore a crown,
A temple with no priest—a tomb.
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