Peter Quince at the Clavier

I

    Just as my fingers on these keys

    Make music, so the self-same sounds

    On my spirit make a music, too.

    Music is feeling, then, not sound;

    And thus it is that what I feel,

    Here in this room, desiring you,

    Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,

    Is music. It is like the strain

    Waked in the elders by Susanna;

  Of a green evening, clear and warm,

  She bathed in her still garden, while

  The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

  The basses of their beings throb

  In witching chords, and their thin blood

  Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II

  In the green water, clear and warm,

  Susanna lay.

  She searched

  The touch of springs,

  And found

  Concealed imaginings.

  She sighed,

  For so much melody.

  Upon the bank, she stood

  In the cool

  Of spent emotions.

  She felt, among the leaves,

  The dew

  Of old devotions.

  She walked upon the grass,

  Still quavering.

  The winds were like her maids,

  On timid feet,

  Fetching her woven scarves,

  Yet wavering.

  A breath upon her hand

  Muted the night.

  She turned —

  A cymbal crashed,

  Amid roaring horns.

III

  Soon, with a noise like tambourines,

  Came her attendant Byzantines.

  They wondered why Susanna cried

  Against the elders by her side;

  And as they whispered, the refrain

  Was like a willow swept by rain.

  Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame

  Revealed Susanna and her shame.

  And then, the simpering Byzantines

  Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV

  Beauty is momentary in the mind —

  The fitful tracing of a portal;

  But in the flesh it is immortal.

  The body dies; the body's beauty lives.

  So evenings die, in their green going,

  A wave, interminably flowing.

  So gardens die, their meek breath scenting

  The cowl of winter, done repenting.

  So maidens die, to the auroral

  Celebration of a maiden's choral.

  Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings

  Of those white elders; but, escaping,

  Left only Death's ironic scraping.

  Now, in its immortality, it plays

  On the clear viol of her memory,

  And makes a constant sacrament of praise.