PRELUDE FOR "A BOOK OF MUSIC"
Without intent, I find a book I've writ
And music is the pleasant theme of it;
For tho' I can no music make, I trust
Here's proof I love it.
Tho' no reasoning fine
Should any ask to show this art divine,
Yet have I known even poets who refuse
To name pure music as an equal muse.
If music pleased them, 't was not deeply felt,
And in its charms they deemed it shame to melt;
For that, they held, it is an art where might
Even children give its votaries delight,
And therefore lacking in the things of mind.
But 't is not argued well. There is a kind
Of music that a little child can give,
Echoing great masters; but the masters live
Not in such echo—elfish, immature;
'T is but a part of them. Ah, be ye sure
Tho' lovely, not the loveliest; that must wait
For him who noble moods can recreate
With solemn, subtile, and deep-thoughted art
That wins the mind or e'er it takes the heart.
For that a child may gracious music make
Is but a sign that music doth partake
Of something deep, primeval, that began
When God dreamed of Himself, and fashioned man.
'T is near the source of being; it repeats
The vibrancy that runs in rhythmic beats
Through all the shaken universe; and tho'
Its language shall take not the ebb and flow
Of speech articulate, it is that tone
