A Century of Roundels [3]
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
Three months bade wane.
II.
A herald soul before its master's flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade, espying
A herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death's dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
A herald soul.
III.
One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
One went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music's radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
One went before.
IV.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart's pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset's fiery goal was won
A star had set?
THE DEATH OF RICHARD WAGNER
I.
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
II.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
III.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the
wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights
where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown
light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god
might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a
might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and
may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark
delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought
set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
TWO PRELUDES
I.
LOHENGRIN
Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From the heaven whence only springs
Love,
Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.
And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings
Love.
II.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Fate, out of the deep sea's gloom,
When a man's heart's pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
Fate,
Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too