Prelude To A Book Of Music Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

WITHOUT intent, I find a book I've writ
And music is the pleasant theme of it;
For though I can no music make, I trust
Here's proof I love it.

Though 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
Though lovely, not the loveliest; that must wait
For him who noble moods can recreate
With solemn, subtle, and deep-thoughted art
That wins the mind or ere 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 though
Its language shall take not the ebb and flow
Of speech articulate, it is that tone
Cleaves closer to life's core; the thing alone
Well-nigh it is, not thought about the thing;
No pictured flight across a painted sky,—
The bird itself, the beating of its wing;
The pang that is a cry;
Not human language, but pure ecstasy.

In this my BOOK OF MUSIC which hath come
As doth a lover's litany by some
Miraculous chance, with added song to song,
I trust I have my Lady done no wrong,—
My Lady of Melody I worshiped long.

Blameless the artist praises the sweet rose
If in his art he aim not to compose
An image, all inanimate, that seeks
To copy shrewdly those inviolate cheeks
Or the rich, natural odor imitate;
But shows, as best he can, its grace and state,
The love that in him burns for this fair flower,
And all his joy therein, for one brief hour.
Nor shall the poet subtly strive to phrase
For any heart save his what music says;
For, —as before the autumn skies and woods, —
A meaning gleams through our own human moods:
Yet is the meaning real; and many a wound
Wherewith our spirits are beaten to the ground
Heals 'neath the sanctity of noble sound.

Ah, not to match the music of the wires
Or trembling breath, the instruments and choirs,
But to tell truly how that moves the soul
In the impassionate and rhythmic word,
By poesy's proper art, —which must be heard
Even as music is! Not to forget
The viol and the harp, the clarinet,
The booming organ; too, the intertwined
Voices wherewith the sounding, rich clavier
Under the master's hand enchants the ear,—
If so may be to catch a fleeting strain
And in new art imprison it again!
Then let him list to music who would rhyme;
For every art, though separate, may learn,
From the great souls in all, how to make burn
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Brighter the light of beauty through all time.
And scorn not thou to read of music's power
Over one soul that in great humbleness
His memory brings of many a happy hour,
Hoping these echoed tones some wounded heart may bless.