TO BEETHOVEN.
Clasped in a too strict calyxing Lay Music's bud o'er-long unblown, Till thou, Beethoven, breathed her spring: Then blushed the perfect rose of tone.
O loving Soul, thy song hath taught All full-grown passion fast to flee Where science drives all full-grown thought— To unity, to unity.
For he whose ear with grave delight Brings brave revealings from thine art Oft hears thee calling through the night: In Love's large tune all tones have part.
Thy music hushes motherwise, And motherwise to stillness sings The slanders told by sickly eyes On nature's healthy course of things.
It soothes my accusations sour 'Gainst frets that fray the restless soul: The stain of death; the pain of power; The lack of love 'twixt part and whole;
The yea-nay of Free-will and Fate, Whereof both cannot be, yet are; The praise a poet wins too late Who starves from earth into a star;
The lies that serve great parties well, While truths but give their Christs a cross The loves that send warm souls to hell, While cold-blood neuters live on loss;
Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace On Jesus, Judas, pours alike; Th' indifferent frown on nature's face When luminous lightnings blindly strike;
The sailor praying on his knees Along with him that's cursing God— Whose wives and babes may starve or freeze, Yet Nature will not stir a clod.
If winds of question blow from out The large sea-caverns of thy notes, They do but clear each cloud of doubt That round a high-path'd purpose floats.
As: why one blind by nature's act Still feels no law in mercy bend, No pitfall from his feet retract, No storm cry out, Take shelter, friend!
Or, Can the truth be best for them That have not stomachs for its strength? Or, Will the sap in Culture's stem E'er reach life's furthest fibre-length?
How to know all, save knowingness; To grasp, yet loosen, feeling's rein; To sink no manhood in success; To look with pleasure upon pain;
How, teased by small mixt social claims, To lose no large simplicity; How through all clear-seen crimes and shames To move with manly purity;
How, justly, yet with loving eyes, Pure art from cleverness to part; To know the Clever good and wise, Yet haunt the lonesome heights of Art.
O Psalmist of the weak, the strong, O Troubadour of love and strife, Co-Litanist of right and wrong, Sole Hymner of the whole of life,
I know not how, I care not why, Thy music brings this broil at ease, And melts my passion's mortal cry In satisfying symphonies.
Yea, it forgives me all my sins, Fits Life to Love like rhyme to rhyme, And tunes the task each day begins By the last trumpet-note of Time.
Sidney Lanier.