THADDEUS.
Have you not noticed, standing in the aislesOf some high-vaulted temple when the massedAnd reverent throngs were hushed in expectation,How a great organ poured forth like a floodIts spell of music as the master's handsSwept the wide boards? What power over the soulTo lift its hopes, to plant its aspirationsIn the rich soil of heaven came from the touch!But let untutored fingers meet the keys,And the rapt ear is split by harsh discords.Are not the strings, the instrument, the sameWith either press? But how extremes dependUpon the craft of him who plays. Life's songsFrom baser jars and fretted failures rangeAlong the gamut of their enterprise,In spiral movement to such high refrainsAs could, with buoyant amplitude of roll,Lift up the souls of sinking men, and floatThe world's grey cares on seas of evening-calm...Have you not heard such music when the windsAre given boundless space wherein to blowUpon the greenness of the earth? They pass,And from the meadows and the valley-slopesThe latent rhythms of the daisies blendWith the low rustle of the sedge. They passAgain, and lo, in grander orchestra,The pines lift up their voices on the hills.A blade of grass, a daisy or a pine,A wave, a waterfall, a heart-string, these,Tuned to the world's blood rhythms, now await.As cords you touch, as reeds you breathe upon,The rising pulses of the morning air.
JULIAN.
Dust gathers in my mouth. I cannot speakWhat I would say. Whether it is the droughtOf age, or some strange filtrate of the pastThat sets a parchèd seal upon the lips,I do not know. It may be that from thistlesI tried to gather figs, or where I lookedBefore I plucked, I said the vines were dry.Now I am old. I find the roadways blocked,And memory, ranging through the fungus years,Finds but the husks where it would take the fruit.And yet there is a knocking in this clay—A restless flame—something that, if it could,Would leap these grammared confines of slow speech,And give the echo to your dancing words.
THIS BOOK IS A PRODUCTION OFTHE RYERSON PRESS,TORONTO, CANADA