"Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
Sailest the placid ocean-plains
With my lost Arthur's loved remains,
Spread thy full wings and waft him o'er.
So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favourable speed
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead
Through prosperous floods his holy urn.
All night no ruder air perplex
Thy sliding keel till Phosphor, bright
As our pure love, through early light
Shall glimmer on thy dewy decks.
Sphere all your lights around, above,
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love."
(Note especially the truly seraphic ineffability of the passage in G flat). It is such music as might have accompanied Him who made the storm his mere mantle, and the raging sea the mere pathway of power; of Him who had the right of all men to say—out of whose mouth the word sounded fullest—Peace!
[Symphony in C Minor, No. 5, Op. 67.]
Beethoven might well write an Heroic Symphony, for the very soul of his symphonies is heroism. He named one "heroic," but he wrote many, including the sonatas, which are unfortunately limited to the piano, whose powers they utterly transcend. Heroism is the soul, and antagonism the substance, through which heroism ultimately fights its way. Beethoven is the Hercules of music (Hercules was in some sort also the Pagan Christ), undertaking labours for men's emancipation and help; beating Hydros down; conquering all sorts of opposition—unconquerable except by love; and, like the antique hero, alas! with an end as tragic. Such comparisons we are obliged to have recourse to, to explain Beethoven's music—its might and significance. "What, then, does this eternal conflict, and victorious heroism storming through, mean?" Ah! how they still paint the conflict of rule and anarchy, of the intellect and reason, of passion and prejudice!
Man is called the microcosm of nature, and music is the microcosm of man; his antagonism and heroism, internal as well as external, are herein mirrored. Music is the highest art; because the most spiritual, infinite, self-existent (creating, not copying), and comprehensive. No statue, picture, or pile, can compare with the power of a symphony—which, indeed, all but rivals that of nature herself, of the great world and starry heavens; the secret of whose power is also the Infinite, with its whispered promise—its soul—Immortality. Art is the shadowing forth of the infinite: music does this most, and Beethoven's is most music. Music, as we said, is the microcosm of man. As the world is comprised in him—alone realized by him, and therefore in some sort alone existent in him, so are his nature and history comprised in music—his depths and heights, beauties and deformities, aspirations and passions, circumstances and powers. It is the "might, majesty, and dominion," inarticulateness, profound beauty—as it were searching flower-cups with star-beams: the effluence of a soul deep as heaven (beyond the other side of earth)—of man (not "etwas," of a man) that Beethoven shadows forth. That one, also, who struggled in the womb—what was he but a type of man in the all-comprising womb of nature? And this, also, Beethoven's music suggests; not least the music of this stupendous symphony—only another "Eroica," and greater, without the name (better so). More suo, Beethoven himself flashed a meaning more or less on it. "So knocketh Fate at the portal;" yes! with the portentousness of the "knocking at the gate" (see Lamb's remarks), in "Macbeth;" yes! fate in the form of duty. And truly, what higher subject—subject dear to the ancients as they are called—subject constantly treated in his own inspired way (Nature's), by Shakespeare—could be chosen? And Beethoven has rivalled Aiskulos and Shakespeare. Here is battle! here is victory!—here, too, the air seems almost oppressive with love and doom; and here, too, in the background, and from the deepest deeps, are wreaths and similes of celestial beauty. "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Another thing the first movement suggests is, that it is the greatest of "Dies Iræ." That passage, especially on the second page of the second part, where one half the orchestra answers the other with the same terrific unisons—
