A MEMORY OF RUBINSTEIN

HE of the ocean is, its thunderous waves
Echo his music; while far down the shore
Mad laughter hurries a white, blowing spume.
I hear again in memory that wild storm;

The winds of heaven go rushing round the world,
And broods above the rage one sphinx-like face.

PADEREWSKI

I

IF songs were perfume, color, wild desire;

If poet's words were fire

That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins;

If with a bird-like thrill the moments throbbed to hours; If summer's rains

Turned drop by drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers; If God made flowers with light and music in them, And saddened hearts could win them;

If loosened petals touched the ground

With a caressing sound;

If love's eyes uttered word

No listening lover e'er before had heard;

If silent thoughts spake with a bugle's voice;

If flame passed into song and cried, "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
If words could picture life's, hope's, heaven's eclipse
When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips;
If all of mortal woe

Struck on one heart with breathless blow on blow;
If melody were tears, and tears were starry gleams
That shone in evening's amethystine dreams;
Ah, yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue,
Trembling to earth in dew;

HANDEL'S LARGO

Or if the boreal pulsings, rose and white,
Made a majestic music in the night;

If all the orbs lost in the light of day

211

In the deep, silent blue began their harps to play;
And when in frightening skies the lightnings flashed
And storm-clouds crashed,

If every stroke of light and sound were but excess of beauty;

If human syllables could e'er refashion

That fierce electric passion;

If other art could match (as were the poet's duty)
The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder
Of that keen hour of wonder,—

That light as if of heaven, that blackness as of hell,-
How the great master plays then might I dare to tell.

II

How the great master plays! And was it he Or some disbodied spirit which had rushed From silence into singing; and had crushed

Into one startled hour a life's felicity,

And highest bliss of knowledge that all pain, grief,

wrong,

Turn at the last to beauty and to song!

HANDEL'S LARGO

WHEN the great organs, answering each to each,

Joined with the violin's celestial speech,

Then did it seem that all the heavenly host

Gave praise to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:

We saw the archangels through the ether winging; We heard their souls go forth in solemn singing; "Praise, praise to God," they sang, "through endless

days,

Praise to the Eternal One, and naught but praise";
And as they sang the spirits of the dying

Were upward borne from lips that ceased their sighing;
And dying was not death, but deeper living-
Living, and prayer, and praising and thanksgiving!

THE STAIRWAY

By this stairway narrow, steep,

Thou shalt climb from song to sleep;

From sleep to dream and song once more;
Sleep well, sweet friend, sleep well, dream deep!

THE ACTOR

GLORIOUS that ancient art!

In thine own form to show the fire and fashion

Of every age and clime, of every passion

That dwells in man's deep heart!

Player, play well, not meanly,

Thy part in life, as on the mimic stage!

From highest thought is born art's noblest rage:
Live, act, end all, serenely!

THE STRICKEN PLAYER

WHEN at life's last the stricken player lies,
When throng before his darkened, dreaming eyes
His soul's companions, which more real then
The human comrades, the live women and men
Of the large world he knew, or the ideal
Imagined creatures his own art made real;
Wherein he poured his spirit's very being,
His soul and body? Are those dim eyes seeing

AN AUTUMN DIRGE

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Himself as one of Shakespeare's men? Are maids
And queens he wooed, the kings he was, or knew
Upon the tragic stage, are these the shades
That now his visionary hours pursue,
Attendant on his passing? Listen near!
What breathed murmurs 'scape those pallid lips
To which the nations hearkened, ere the eclipse
Of all that brightness? Now lean close and hear;
Ah, see that look, sweeter than when he smiled
Upon the applauding world, while she draws near
And hears a dear voice whisper: "Child, my Child!"

AN AUTUMN DIRGE

(E. F. H.)

I

O EASE my heart, sad song, O ease my heart!

In all this autumn pageantry no part

Hath sorrow! Woods, and fields, and meadows glow

With jeweled colors. All alone I go

Amid the poignant beauty of the year,

Too heavy-hearted for one easeful tear.

For she who loved this autumn splendor,

These flaming marsh-flowers, oak-leaves rich and ten

der,

And who in loving all, made all to me more dear,

No more is here;

No more, no more is here!

Sad song, O, bring some thought

With music from some happy memory caught!

No light for me in all the lovely day

Those eyes being shut that first did lead the way

'Neath these great pines whose green vault hides the sky, And down the rock-strewn shore where the white sea

birds cry!

II

All fades but those young, happy hours,
And in my soul once more the old joy flowers.
It flowers once more only to bring new pain;
For all in vain,

O song! thou singest in my grieving heart!
Thou hast no art

To bring again the smile I loved so well,

The voice that like a bell

Sounded all moods of sorrow and of laughter,

And the dear presence that in childhood's earliest

thought,

And all the bright or darkened days thereafter,

Into my life a saddened sweetness brought —
Something of mother and of sister love,

A friendship far above

The ties that bind and loosen as we tread

The thronged pleasures of life's later days.
Sweet maiden soul, I cannot praise

But mourn thee, mourn thee, to the shadows fled.

Shadows, O nevermore!

III

For when past forth thy spirit it did seem

As if against the black a golden door

Were opened and a gleam

From the eternal Light fell on thy face

And made a visible glory in the place.

Ah, well I know

Whatever be the source from whence we flow,
Whate'er the power begot these hearts of ours,-
As the great earth brings forth the summer flowers, ·
That power is good, is God, and in her dying room
Humaned itself to sense and lightened all the gloom.