The Anger Of Beethoven Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

THIS night the enchanting musicians rendered a trio of Beethoven,—
Light and lovely, or solemn, as in a Tuscan tower
The walls with gracious tapestries gleam, and the deep-cut windows
Give on landscapes gigantic, framing the four-square world,—
When sudden the music turned to anger, as nature's murmur
Sometimes to anger turns, speaking, in voice infuriate,
Cruel, quick, implacable; inhuman, savage, resistless,—
And I thought of that sensitive spirit flinging back in scorn tempestuous,
And in art supreme, immortal, the infamous arrows of fortune.