!

Glowing as with one heart and one consent—

Thought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance

blent.

The sun had sunk, but music still was there,

And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air :

It seemed the stars were shining with delight

And that no night was ever like this night.

All clung with praise to Jubal: some besought

That he would teach them his new skill; some caught,
Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet,
The tone's melodic change and rhythmic beat:
'Twas easy following where invention trod-
All eyes can see when light flows out from God.

And thus did Jubal to his race reveal

Music their larger soul, where woe and weal
Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance,
Moved with a wider-wingèd utterance.

Now many a lyre was fashioned, many a song
Raised echoes new, old echoes to prolong.

That true heaven, the recovered past,

The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast.

The future, that bright land which swims
In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze.

Man's life was spacious in the early world :

It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled
Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled ;

Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,

And grew from strength to strength through centuries;

Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,

And heard a thousand times the sweet birds' marriage hymns.

Things new made,

Usurping sense, make old things shrink and fade
And seem ashamed to meet the staring day.

-0

The soul without still helps the soul within,
And its deft magic ends what we begin.

Strong passion's daring sees not aught to dare.

And a new spirit from that hour (the hour when
Death first appeared among them) came o’er

The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,
But even the sunshine had a heart of care,

Smiling with hidden dread-a mother fair

Who folding to her breast a dying child

Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.

1

Death was now lord of life, and at his word

Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
With measured wing now audibly arose

Throbbing through all things to some unknown close.
Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
And Work grew eager, and Device was born.

It seemed the light was never loved before,

Now each man said, "Twill go and come no more.'
No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,

No form, no shadow, but new dearness took

From the one thought that life must have an end ;
And the last parting now began to send
Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,
Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
Then Memory disclosed her face divine,

That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine
Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,
And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,
No space, no warmth, but moves among them all ;
Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,
With ready voice and eyes that understand,
And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.
Thus to Cain's race death was tear-watered seed
Of various life and action-shaping need.

But chief the sons of Lamech felt the stings
Of new ambition, and the force that springs
In passion beating on the shores of fate.
They said, 'There comes a night when all too late
The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand.

The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
And the last wishes to the mute lips press

Buried ere death in silent helplessness.

Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave,
And while the arm is strong to strike and heave,
Let soul and arm give shape that will abide
And rule above our graves, and power divide
With that great god of day, whose rays must bend
As we shall make the moving shadows tend.

Come, let us fashion acts that are to be,

When we shall lie in darkness silently.'

Leo.

ARMGART.

Various Characters.

Ay, my lady,

That moment will not come again: applause
May come and plenty; but the first, first draught!
Music has sounds for it-I know no words.
I felt it once myself when they performed
My overture to Sintram. Well! 'tis strange,

We know not pain from pleasure in such joy.

Armg.―0, pleasure has cramped dwelling in our souls,

And when full being comes must call on pain
To lend it liberal space.

Armg.-How old are you?

Leo.

Armg.

Threescore and five.

That's old.

I never thought till now how you have lived.

They hardly ever play your music?

Leo (raising his eyebrows and throwing out his

lip).

412

No!