Nothing but sweet music wakes
My Beloved, my Beloved.
Sleeping by the blue lakes,
My own Beloved!
Song of lark and song of thrush,
My Beloved! my Beloved!
Sing in morning's rosy bush,
My own Beloved!
When your eyes dawn blue and clear,
My Beloved! my Beloved!
You will find me waiting here,
My own Beloved!
Oh, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!
The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.
And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.
Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,--
I know what sound is there.
Like interpenetrating bells of silver,
The water-drops ring and melt
Into new drops, like new notes
From an untiring lyre,
That in colored succession
Paint our heart-beats
From the gold of sunrise into sunset fire;
Yet, not like that, this brush of water-drops
Limns on the silver rim of Joy
The dark Butterflies of Desire.
The lake, a silver mirror in a frame of green;
The swans on it but white fancies in a whiter dream.
The enchanted bowl of blue below the rim,
But a goblet with liquid diamonds, filled to the brim.
White within white, a song in a sea,
Painted within a mirror, green hill and tree.
Moveless music, without murmur or moan;
Swan-made curves, its tune, its measure, and tone.
Coral-music, the sunset writes on the scroll of the sea;
Gold strings are strung in the harp of the sky;
Cloud-fingers, playing on them,
Make noiseless gossamer-melody;
As the amber-draped moon-maid
Trips from the sea to the Heavens
Dancing the measure of evening worship.
Am no longer lame since Spring
Stooped to me where I lay,
And charmed with flute and silver lute
My laggard limbs to play.
Her voice is sweet as long-stored wine;
I leap like a hounded fawn;
I rise and follow over hill and hollow
To the flush of the crimson dawn!
There is a lovely noise about your name,
Above the shoutings of the city clear,
More than a moment’s merriment, whose claim
Will greater grow with every mellowed year.
The people will not bear you down the street,
Dancing to the strong rhythm of your words,
The modern kings will throttle you to greet
The piping voice of artificial birds.
But the rare lonely spirits, even mine,
Who love the immortal music of all days,
Will see the glory of your trailing line,
The bedded beauty of your haunting lays.
Three violins are trying their hearts.
The piece is MacDowell's Wild Rose.
And the time of the wild rose
And the leaves of the wild rose
And the dew-shot eyes of the wild rose
Sing in the air over three violins.
Somebody like you was in the heart of MacDowell.
Somebody like you is in three violins.
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha
-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible,
cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle
cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums,
traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans — make two people fight
on the top of a stairway and scratch each other's eyes
in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat
pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . .
I WANDER down on Clinton street south of Polk
And listen to the voices of Italian children quarreling.
It is a cataract of coloratura
And I could sleep to their musical threats and accusations.
Sell me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood.
Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead
where men kiss sisters they love.
Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion clutching
the knees and arms of a storm.
Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts
of the morning sun for milk.
Sell me something crushed in the heartsblood of pain
readier than ever for one more song.