Love Letters of a Violinist and Other Poems Part 21

IV.

In cities and camps I have lighted my lamps, My kisses are caught by kings and tramps.

With rant and revel My hair I dishevel, And I am the queen of Astrofelle.

V.

My kisses are stains, Mine arms are chains, My forehead is fair and false like Cain's.

My gain is loss, Mine honour is dross,-- And I am the queen of Astrofelle!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

BEETHOVEN AT THE PIANO.

I.

See where Beethoven sits alone--a dream of days elysian, A crownless king upon a throne, reflected in a vision-- The man who strikes the potent chords which make the world, in wonder, Acknowledge him, though poor and dim, the mouthpiece of the thunder.

II.

He feels the music of the skies the while his heart is breaking; He sings the songs of Paradise, where love has no forsaking.

And, though so deaf he cannot hear the tempest as a token, He makes the music of his mind the grandest ever spoken.

III.

He doth not hear the whispered word of love in his seclusion, Or voice of friend, or song of bird, in Nature's sad confusion; But he hath made, for Love's sweet sake, so wild a declamation That all true lovers of the earth have claim'd him of their nation.

IV.

He had a Juliet in his youth, as Romeo had before him, And, Romeo-like, he sought to die that she might then adore him; But she was weak, as women are whose faith has not been proven, And would not change her name for his--Guiciardi for Beethoven.

V.

O minstrel, whom a maiden spurned, but whom a world has treasured!

O sovereign of a greater realm than man has ever measured!

Thou hast not lost the lips of love, but thou hast gain'd, in glory, The love of all who know the thrall of thine immortal story.

VI.

Thou art the bard whom none discard, but whom all men discover To be a G.o.d, as Orpheus was, albeit a lonely lover; A king to call the stones to life beside the roaring ocean, And bid the stars discourse to trees in words of man's emotion.

VII.

A king of joys, a prince of tears, an emperor of the seasons, Whose songs are like the sway of years in Love's immortal reasons; A bard who knows no life but this: to love and be rejected, And reproduce in earthly strains the prayers of the elected.

VIII.

O poet heart! O seraph soul! by men and maids adored!

O t.i.tan with the lion's mane, and with the splendid forehead!

We men who bow to thee in grief must tremble in our gladness, To know what tears were turned to pearls to crown thee in thy sadness.

IX.

An Angel by direct descent, a German by alliance, Thou didst intone the wonder-chords which made Despair a science.

Yea, thou didst strike so grand a note that, in its large vibration, It seemed the roaring of the sea in nature's jubilation.

X.

O Sire of Song! Sonata-King! Sublime and loving master; The sweetest soul that ever struck an octave in disaster; In thee were found the fires of thought--the splendours of endeavour,-- And thou shalt sway the minds of men for ever and for ever!

A RHAPSODY OF DEATH.

I.

That phantoms fair, with radiant hair, May seek at midnight hour The sons of men, belov'd again, And give them holy power; That souls survive the mortal hive, and sinless come and go, Is true as death, the prophet saith; and G.o.d will have it so.

II.

For who be ye who doubt and prate?

O sages! make it clear If ye be more than men of fate, Or less than men of cheer; If ye be less than bird or beast? O brothers! make it plain If ye be bankrupts at a feast, or sharers in a gain.

III.

You say there is no future state; The clue ye fail to find.

The flesh is here, and bones appear When graves are undermined.

But of the soul, in time of dole, what answer can ye frame-- Ye who have heard no spirit-word to guide ye to the same.

IV.