Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/410

382 PRELUDE FOR "A BOOK OF MUSIC"

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