The Legend of Jubal (Lovell, 1881)


 * When Cain was driven from Jehovah's land
 * He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand
 * Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings
 * Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,
 * To feed the subtler sense of frames divine
 * That lived on fragrance for their food and wine:
 * Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,
 * And could be pitiful and melancholy.
 * He never had a doubt that such gods were;
 * He looked within, and saw them mirrored there.
 * Some think he came at last to Tartary,
 * And some to Ind; but, howsoe'er it be,
 * His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,
 * And in that home of Cain the Arts began.


 * Man's life was spacious in the early world:
 * It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled
 * Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled;
 * Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,
 * And grew from strength to strength through centuries;
 * Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,
 * And heard a thousand times the sweet birds' marriage hymns.


 * In Cain's young city none had heard of Death
 * Save him, the founder; and it was his faith
 * That here, away from harsh Jehovah's law,
 * Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw
 * In Cain's own frame betrayed six hundred years,
 * But dark as pines that autumn never sears
 * His locks thronged backward as he ran, his frame
 * Rose like the orbed sun each morn the same,
 * Lake-mirrored to his gaze; and that red brand,
 * The scorching impress of Jehovah's hand,
 * Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye,
 * Its secret firm in time-fraught memory.


 * He said, "My happy offspring shall not know
 * That the red life from out a man may flow
 * When smitten by his brother." True, his race
 * Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face
 * A copy of the brand no whit less clear;
 * But every mother held that little copy dear.


 * Thus generations in glad idlesse throve,
 * Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove;
 * For clearest springs were plenteous in the land,
 * And gourds for cups; the ripe fruits sought the hand,
 * Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold;
 * And for their roofs and garments wealth untold
 * Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves:
 * They labored gently, as a maid who weaves
 * Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft
 * And strokes across her hand the tresses soft,
 * Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly,
 * Or little burthened ants that homeward hie.
 * Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,
 * There was no' need for haste to finish aught;
 * But sweet beginnings were repeated still
 * Like infant babblings that no task fulfil;
 * For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will.


 * Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy,
 * Strong Lamech struck and killed his fairest boy,
 * And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries,
 * And fetched and held before the glazed eyes
 * The things they best had loved to look upon;
 * But never glance or smile or sigh he won.
 * The generations stood around those twain
 * Helplessly gazing, till their father Cain
 * Parted the press, and said, " He will not wake;
 * This is the endless sleep, and we must make
 * A bed deep down for him beneath the sod;
 * For know, my sons, there is a mighty God
 * Angry with all man's race, but most with me.
 * I fled from out His land in vain! —'tis He
 * Who came and slew the lad; for He has found
 * This home of ours, and we shall all be bound
 * By the harsh bands of His most cruel will,
 * Which any moment may some dear one kill.
 * Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last
 * We and all ours shall die like summers past.
 * This is Jehovah's will, and He is strong;
 * I thought the way I travelled was too long
 * For Him to follow me: my thought was vain!
 * He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain,
 * Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again!"


 * And a new spirit from that hour came o'er
 * The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,
 * But even the sunshine had a heart of care,
 * Smiling with hidden dread- a mother fair
 * Who folding to her breast a dying child
 * Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.


 * Death was now lord of Life, and at his word
 * Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
 * With measured wing now audibly arose
 * Throbbing through all things to some unknown close.
 * Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
 * And Work grew eager, and Device was born.


 * It seemed the light was never loved before,
 * Now each man said, "Twill go and come no more."
 * No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
 * No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
 * From the one thought that life must have an end;
 * And the last parting now began to send
 * Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,
 * Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
 * Then Memory disclosed her face divine,
 * That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine
 * Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,
 * And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,
 * No space, no warmth, but moves among them all;
 * Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,
 * With ready voice and eyes that understand,
 * And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.


 * Thus to Cain's race death was tear-watered seed
 * Of various life and action-shaping need.
 * But chief 'the sons of Lamech felt the stings
 * Of new ambition, and the force that springs
 * In passion beating on the shores of fate.
 * They said, " There comes a night when all too late
 * The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand,
 * The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
 * And the last wishes to the mute lips press
 * Buried ere death in silent helplessness.
 * Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave,
 * And while the arm is strong to strike and heave,
 * Let soul and arm give shape that will abide
 * And rule above our graves, and power divide
 * With that great god of day, whose rays must bend
 * As we shall make the moving shadows tend.
 * Come, let us. fashion acts that are to be,
 * When we shall lie in darkness silently,
 * As our young brother doth, whom yet we see
 * Fallen and slain, but reigning in our will
 * By that one image of him pale and still."


 * For Lamech's sons were heroes of their race:
 * Jabal, the eldest, bore upon his face
 * The look of that calm river-god, the Nile,
 * Mildly secure in power that needs not guile.


 * But Tubal-Cain was restless as the fire
 * That glows and spreads and leaps from high to higher
 * Where'er is aught to seize or to subdue;
 * Strong as a storm he lifted or o'erthrew,
 * His urgent limbs like rounded granite grew,
 * Such granite as the plunging torrent wears       [variant: His urgent limbs like granite bowlders grew, Such bowlders as...]
 * And roaring rolls around through countless years.
 * But strength that still on movement must be fed,
 * Inspiring thought of change, devices bred,
 * And urged his mind through earth and air to rove
 * For force that he could conquer if he strove,
 * For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfil
 * And yield unwilling to his stronger-will.
 * Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame
 * Fashioned to finer senses, which became
 * A yearning for some hidden soul of things,
 * Some outward touch complete on inner springs
 * That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain,
 * A want that did but stronger grow with gain
 * Of all good else, as spirits might be sad
 * For lack of speech to tell us they are glad.


 * Now Jabal learned to tame the lowing kine,
 * And from their udders drew the snow-white wine
 * That stirs the innocent joy, and makes the stream
 * Of elemental life with fulness teem;
 * The star-browed calves he nursed With feeding hand,
 * And sheltered them, till all the little band
 * Stood mustered gazing at the sunset way
 * Whence he would come with store at close of day.
 * He soothed the silly sheep with friendly tone,
 * And reared their staggering lambs, that, older grown,
 * Followed his steps with sense-taught memory;
 * Till he, their shepherd, could their leader be,
 * And guide them through the pastures as he would,
 * With sway that grew from ministry of good.
 * He spread his tents upon the grassy plain
 * Which, eastward widening like the open main,
 * Showed the first whiteness 'neath the morning star;
 * Near him his sister, deft, as women are,
 * Plied her quick skill in sequence to his thought
 * Till the hid treasures of the milk she caught
 * Revealed like pollen 'mid the petals white,
 * The golden pollen, virgin to the light.
 * Even the she-wolf with young, on rapine bent,
 * He caught and tethered in his mat-walled tent,
 * And cherished all her little sharp-nosed young
 * Till the small race with hope and terror clung
 * About his footsteps, till each new-reared brood,
 * Remoter from the memories of the wood,
 * More glad discerned their common home with man.
 * This was the work of Jabal: he began
 * The pastoral life, and, sire of joys to be,
 * Spread the sweet ties that bind the family
 * O'er dear dumb souls that thrilled at man's caress,
 * And shared his pain with patient helpfulness.


 * But Tubal-Cain had caught and yoked the fire,
 * Yoked it with stones that bent the flaming spire
 * And made it roar in prisoned servitude
 * Within the furnace, till with force subdued
 * It changed all forms he willed to work upon,
 * Till hard from soft,-and soft from hard, he won.
 * The pliant clay he moulded as he would,
 * And laughed with joy when 'mid the heat it stood
 * Shaped as his hand had chosen, while the mass
 * That from his hold, dark, obstinate, would pass,
 * He drew all glowing from the busy heat,
 * All breathing as with life that he could beat
 * With thundering hammer, making it obey
 * His will creative, like the pale soft clay.
 * Each day he wrought and better than he planned,
 * Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand.
 * (The soul without still helps the soul within,
 * And its deft magic ends what we begin.)
 * Nay, in his dreams his hammer he would wield
 * And seem to see a myriad types revealed,
 * Then spring with wondering triumphant cry,
 * And, lest the inspiring vision should go by,
 * Would rush to labor with that plastic zeal
 * Which all the passion of our life can steal
 * For force to work with. Each day saw the birth
 * Of various forms, which, flung upon the earth,
 * Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour,
 * But were as seeds instinct with hidden power.
 * The axe, the club, the spiked wheel, the chain,
 * Held silently the shrieks and moans of pain;
 * And near them latent lay in share and spade,
 * In the strong bar, the saw, and deep-curved blade,
 * Glad voices of the hearth and harvest-home,
 * The social good, and all earth's joy to come.
 * Thus to mixed ends wrought Tubal; and they say,
 * Some things he made have lasted to this day;
 * As, thirty silver pieces that were found
 * By Noah's children buried in the ground.
 * He made them from mere hunger of device,
 * Those small white' discs; but they became the price
 * The traitor Judas sold his Master for;
 * And men still handling them in peace and war
 * Catch foul disease, that comes as appetite,
 * And lurks and clings as withering, damning blight.
 * But Tubal-Cain wot not of treachery,
 * Nor greedy lust, nor any ill to be,
 * Save the one ill of sinking into nought,
 * Banished from action and act-shaping thought.
 * He was the sire of swift-transforming skill,
 * Which arms for conquest man's ambitious will;
 * And round him gladly, as his hammer rung,
 * Gathered the elders and the growing young:
 * These handled vaguely, and those plied the tools,
 * Till, happy chance begetting conscious rules,
 * The home of Cain with industry was rife,
 * And glimpses of a strong persistent life,
 * Panting through generations as one breath,
 * And filling with its soul the blank of death.


 * Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes,
 * No longer following its fall or rise,
 * Seemed glad with something that they could not see,
 * But only listened to - some melody,
 * Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found,
 * Won from the common store of struggling sound.
 * Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
 * And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
 * Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
 * Of some external soul that spoke for him:
 * The hollow vessel's clang, the clash, the boom,
 * Like light that makes wide spiritual room
 * And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,
 * To Jubal such enlarged passion brought,
 * That love, hope, rage, and all experience,
 * Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence
 * Concords and discords, cadences and cries
 * That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise,
 * Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,
 * Some living sea that burst the bounds of man's brief age.


 * Then with such blissful trouble and glad care
 * For growth. within unborn as mothers bear,
 * To the far woods he wandered, listening,
 * And heard the birds their little stories sing
 * In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech—
 * Melted with tears, smiles, glances —that can reach
 * More quickly through our frame's deep-winding night,
 * And without thought raise thought's best fruit, delight.
 * Pondering, he sought his home again and heard
 * The fluctuant changes of the spoken word:
 * The deep remonstrance and the argued want,
 * Insistent first in close monotonous chant,
 * Next leaping upward to defiant stand
 * Or downward beating like the resolute hand;
 * The mother's call, the children's answering cry,
 * The laugh's light cataract tumbling from on high;
 * The suasive repetitions Jabal taught,
 * That timid browsing cattle homeward brought:
 * The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing;
 * And through them all the hammer's rhythmic ring.
 * Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim,
 * Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him:
 * For as the delicate stream of odor wakes
 * The thought-wed sentience, and some image makes
 * From out the mingled fragments of the past,
 * Finely compact in wholeness that will last,
 * So streamed as from the body of each sound
 * Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found
 * All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound,
 * Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory,
 * And in creative vision wandered free.
 * Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised,
 * And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed,
 * As had some manifested god been there.
 * It was his thought he saw: the presence fair
 * Of unachieved achievement, the high task,
 * The mighty unborn spirit that doth ask
 * With irresistible cry for blood and breath,
 * Till feeding its great life we sink in death.


 * He said, "Were now those mighty tones and cries
 * That from the giant soul of earth arise,
 * Those groans of some great travail heard from far,
 * Some power at wrestle with the things that are,
 * Those sounds which vary with the varying form
 * Of clay and metal, and in sightless swarm
 * Fill the wide space with tremors: were these wed
 * To human voices with such passion fed
 * As does but glimmer in our common speech,
 * But might flame out in tones whose changing reach
 * Surpassing meagre need, informs the sense
 * With fuller union, finer difference—
 * Were this great vision, now obscurely bright
 * As morning hills that melt in new-poured light,
 * Wrought into solid form and living sound,
 * Moving with ordered throb and sure rebound,
 * Then——Nay, I Jubal will that work begin!
 * The generations of our race shall win
 * New life, that grows from out the heart of this,
 * As spring from winter, or as lovers' bliss
 * From out the dull unknown of unwaked energies."


 * Thus he resolved, and in the soul-fed light
 * Of coming ages waited through the night,
 * Watching for that near dawn whose chiller ray
 * Showed but the unchanged world of yesterday;
 * Where all the order of his dream divine
 * Lay like Olympian forms within the mine;
 * Where fervor that could fill the earthly round
 * With thronged joys of form-begotten sound
 * Must shrink intense within the patient power
 * That lonely labors through the niggard hour.
 * Such patience have the heroes who begin,
 * Sailing the first toward lands which others win.
 * Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,
 * Strike form's first way in matter rude and bare,
 * And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir
 * Of the world's harvest, make one poor small lyre.
 * He made it, and from out its measured frame
 * Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came
 * With guidance sweet and lessons of delight
 * Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right,
 * Where strictest law is gladness to-the sense,
 * And all desire bends toward obedience.


 * Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song—
 * The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong
 * As radiance streams from smallest things that burn,
 * Or thought of loving into love doth turn.
 * And still his lyre gave companionship
 * In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip.
 * Alone amid the hills at first he tried
 * His winged song; then with adoring pride
 * And bridegroom's joy at leading forth his bride,
 * He said, "This wonder which my soul hath found,
 * This heart of music in the might of sound,
 * Shall forthwith be the share of all our race,
 * And like the morning gladden common space:
 * The song shall spread and swell as rivers do,
 * And I will teach our youth with skill to woo
 * This living lyre, to know its secret will;
 * Its fine division of the good and ill..
 * So shall men call me sire of harmony,
 * And where great Song is, there my life shall be."


 * Thus glorying as a god beneficent,
 * Forth from his solitary joy he went
 * To bless mankind. It was at evening,
 * When shadows lengthen from each westward thing,
 * When imminence of change makes sense more fine,
 * And light seems holier in its grand decline.
 * The fruit-trees wore their studded coronal,
 * Earth and her children were at festival,
 * Glowing as with one heart and one consent—
 * Thought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance blent.


 * The tribe of Cain was resting on the ground,
 * The various ages wreathed in one broad round.
 * Here lay, while children peeped o'er his huge thighs,
 * The sinewy man embrowned by centuries;
 * Here the broad-bosomed mother of the strong
 * Looked, like Demeter, placid o'er the throng
 * Of young lithe forms whose rest was movement too—
 * Tricks, prattle, nods, and laughs that lightly flew,
 * And swayings as of flower-beds where Love blew.
 * For all had feasted well upon the flesh
 * Of juicy fruits, on nuts, and honey fresh,
 * And now their wine was health-bred merriment,
 * Which through the generations circling went,
 * Leaving none sad, for even father Cain
 * Smiled as a Titan might, despising pain.
 * Jabal sat circled with a playful ring
 * Of children, lambs and whelps, whose gambolling,
 * With tiny hoofs, paws, hands, and dimpled feet,
 * Made barks, bleats, laughs, in pretty hubbub meet.
 * But Tubal's hammer rang from far away,
 * Tubal alone would keep no holiday,
 * His furnace must not slack for any feast,
 * For of all hardship, work he counted least;
 * He scorned all rest but sleep, where every dream
 * Made his repose more potent action seem.


 * Yet with health's nectar some strange thirst was blent,
 * The fateful growth, the unnamed discontent,
 * The inward shaping toward some unborn power,
 * Some deeper-breathing act, the being's flower.
 * After all gestures, words, and speech of eyes,
 * The soul had more to tell, and broke in sighs.
 * Then from the east, with glory on his head
 * Such as low-slanting beams on corn-waves spread,
 * Came Jubal with his lyre: there 'mid the throng,
 * Where the blank space was, poured a solemn song,
 * Touching his lyre to full harmonic throb
 * And measured pulse, with cadences that sob,
 * Exult and cry, and search the inmost deep
 * Where the dark sources of new passion sleep.
 * Joy took the air, and took each breathing soul,
 * Embracing them in one entranced whole,
 * Yet thrilled each varying frame to various ends,
 * As Spring new-waking through the creature sends
 * Or rage or tenderness; more plenteous life
 * Here breeding dread, and there a fiercer strife.
 * He who had lived through twice three centuries,
 * Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees
 * In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze,
 * Dreamed himself dimly through the travelled days
 * Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun
 * That warmed him when he was a little one;
 * Knew that true heaven, the recovered past,
 * The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast,
 * And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs
 * Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims
 * In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
 * Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze.
 * And in all these the rhythmic influence,
 * Sweetly o'ercharging the delighted sense,
 * Flowed out in movements, little waves that spread
 * Enlarging, till in tidal union led
 * The youths and maidens both alike long-tressed,
 * By grace-inspiring melody possessed,
 * Rose in slow dance, with beauteous floating swerve
 * Of limbs and hair, and many a melting curve
 * Of ringed feet swayed by each close-linked palm:
 * Then Jubal poured, more rapture in his psalm,
 * The dance fired music, music fired the dance,
 * The glow diffusive lit each countenance,
 * Till all the circling tribe arose and stood
 * With glad yet awful shock of that mysterious good.


 * Even Tubal caught the sound, and wondering came,
 * Urging his sooty bulk like smoke-wrapt flame
 * Till he could see his brother with the lyre,
 * The work for which he lent his furnace-fire
 * And diligent hammer, witting nought of this
 * This power in metal shape which made strange bliss,
 * Entering within him like a dream full-fraught
 * With new creations finished in a thought.
 * The sun had sunk, but music still was there,
 * And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air:
 * It seemed the stars were shining with delight
 * And that no night was ever like this night.
 * All clung with praise to Jubal: some besought
 * That he would teach them his new skill; some caught,
 * Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet,
 * The tone's melodic change and rhythmic beat:
 * 'Twas easy following where invention trod—
 * All eyes can see when light flows out from God.


 * And thus did Jubal to his race reveal
 * Music their larger soul, where woe and weal
 * Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance,
 * Moved with a wider-winged utterance.
 * Now many a lyre was fashioned, many a song
 * Raised echoes new, old echoes to prolong,
 * Till things of Jubal's making were so rife,
 * "Hearing myself," he said, "I hems in my life,
 * And I will get me to some far-off land,
 * Where higher mountains under heaven stand
 * And touch the blue at rising of the stars,
 * Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars
 * The great clear voices. Such lands there must be,
 * Where varying forms make varying symphony
 * Where other thunders roll amid the hills,
 * Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills
 * With other strains through other-shapen boughs;
 * Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse
 * Will teach me songs I know not. Listening there,
 * My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair
 * That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year."


 * He took a raft, and travelled with the stream
 * Southward for many a league, till he might deem
 * He saw at last the pillars of the sky,
 * Beholding mountains whose white majesty
 * Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song
 * That swept with fuller wave the chords along,
 * Weighting his voice with deep religious chime,.
 * The iteration of slow chant sublime.


 * It was the region long inhabited
 * By all the race of Seth; and Jubal said,
 * "Here have I found my thirsty soul's desire,
 * Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening's fire
 * Flames through deep waters, I will take my rest,
 * And feed anew from my great mother's breast,
 * The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me
 * As the flowers' sweetness doth the honey-bee."
 * He lingered wandering for many an age,
 * And, sowing music, made high heritage
 * For generations far beyond the Flood
 * For the poor late-begotten human brood
 * Born to life's weary brevity and perilous good.


 * And ever as he travelled he would climb
 * The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime,
 * The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres
 * Beating their pathway, never touched his ears.
 * But wheresoe'er he rose, the heavens rose,
 * And the far-gazing mountain could disclose
 * Nought but a wider earth; until one height
 * Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,
 * And he could hear its multitudinous roar,
 * Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore:
 * Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more.


 * He thought, "The world is great, but I am weak,
 * And where the sky bends is no solid peak
 * To give me footing, but instead, this main
 * Like myriad maddened horses thundering o'er the plain.


 * "New voices come to me where'er I roam,
 * My heart too widens with its widening home:
 * But song grows weaker, and the heart must break
 * For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake
 * The lyre's full answer; nay, its chords were all
 * Too few to meet the growing spirit's call.
 * The former songs seem little, yet no more
 * Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore
 * Tell what the earth is saying unto me:
 * The secret is too great, I hear confusedly.


 * "No farther will I travel: once again
 * My brethren I will see, and that fair plain
 * Where I and song were born. There fresh-voiced youth
 * Will pour my strains with all the early truth
 * Which now abides not in my voice and hands,
 * But only in the soul, the will that stands
 * Helpless to move. My tribe remembering Will cry,
 * ' 'Tis he!' and run to greet me, welcoming."


 * The way was weary. Many a date-palm grew,
 * And shook out clustered gold against the blue,
 * While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres,
 * Sought the dear home of those first eager years,
 * When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will
 * Took living outward shape in pliant skill;
 * For still he hoped to find the former things,
 * And the warm gladness recognition brings.
 * His footsteps erred among the mazy woods
 * And long illusive sameness of the floods,
 * Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange
 * With Gentile homes and faces, did he range,
 * And left his music in their memory,
 * And left at last, when nought besides would free
 * His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries,
 * The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes
 * No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech's son,
 * That mortal frame wherein was first begun
 * The immortal life of song. His withered brow
 * Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now,
 * His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air,
 * The unresting soul had worn itself quite bare
 * Of beauteous token, as the outworn might
 * Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer's light.
 * His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran:
 * He was the rune-writ story of a man.


 * And so at last he neared the well-known land,
 * Could see the hills in ancient order stand
 * With friendly faces whose familiar gaze
 * Looked through the sunshine of his childish days;
 * Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods,
 * And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods
 * Whirling and quivering o'er the flowers —to hear
 * The selfsame cuckoo making distance near.
 * Yea, the dear Earth, with mother's constancy,
 * Met and embraced him, and said, "Thou art he!
 * This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine,
 * Where feeding, thou didst all thy life intwine
 * With my skly-wedded life in heritage divine."


 * But wending ever through the watered plain,
 * Firm not to rest save in the home of Cain,
 * He saw dread Change, with dubious face and cold
 * That never kept a welcome for the old,
 * Like some strange heir upon the hearth, arise
 * Saying, "This home is mine." He thought his eyes
 * Mocked all deep memories, as things new made,
 * Usurping sense, make old things shrink and fade
 * And seem ashamed to meet the staring day.
 * His memory saw a small foot-trodden way,
 * His eyes a broad far-stretching paven road
 * Bordered with many a tomb and fair abode;
 * The little city that once nestled low
 * As buzzing groups about some central glow,
 * Spread like a murmuring crowd o'er plain and steep,
 * Or monster huge in heavy-breathing sleep.
 * His heart grew faint, and tremblingly he sank
 * Close by the wayside on a weed-grown bank,
 * Not far from where a new-raised temple stood,
 * Sky-roofed, and fragrant with wrought cedar-wood.
 * The morning sun was high; his rays fell hot
 * On this hap-chosen, dusty, common spot,
 * On the dry withered grass and withered man:
 * That wondrous frame where melody began
 * Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.


 * But while he sank far music reached his ear.
 * He listened until wonder silenced fear,
 * And gladness wonder; for the broadening stream
 * Of sound advancing was his early dream,
 * Brought like fulfilment of forgotten prayer;
 * As if his soul, breathed out upon the air,
 * Had held the invisible seeds of harmony
 * Quick with the various strains of life to be.
 * He listened: the sweet mingled difference
 * With charm alternate took the meeting sense;
 * Then bursting like some shield-broad lily red,
 * Sudden and near the trumpet's notes out-spread,
 * And soon his eyes could see the metal flower,
 * Shining upturned, out on the morning pour
 * Its incense audible; could see a train
 * From out the street slow-winding on the plain
 * With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries,
 * While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these
 * With various throat, or in succession poured,
 * Or in full volume mingled. But one word
 * Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall,
 * As when the multitudes adoring call
 * On some great name divine, their common soul,
 * The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole.


 * The word was "Jubal!".. "Jubal" filled the air,
 * And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,
 * Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain
 * That grateful rolled itself to him again.
 * The aged man adust upon the bank—
 * Whom no eye saw— at first with rapture drank
 * The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart,
 * Felt, this was his own being's greater part,
 * The universal joy once born in him.
 * But when the train, with living face and limb
 * And vocal breath, came nearer and more near,
 * The longing grew that they should hold him dear;
 * Him, Lamech's son, whom all their fathers knew,
 * The breathing Jubal —him, to whom their love was due.
 * All was forgotten but the burning need
 * To claim his fuller self, to claim the deed
 * That lived away from him, and grew apart,
 * While he as from a tomb, with lonely heart,
 * Warmed by no meeting glance, no hand that pressed,
 * Lay chill amid the life his life had blessed.
 * What though his song should spread from man's small race
 * Out through the myriad worlds that people space,
 * And make the heavens one joy-diffusing quire?—      [Note: quire is replaced by choir in some editions]
 * Still 'mid that vast would throb the keen desire
 * Of this poor aged flesh, this eventide,
 * This twilight soon in darkness to subside,
 * This little pulse of self, that, having glowed
 * Through thrice three centuries, and divinely strewed
 * The light of music through the vague of sound,
 * Ached smallness still in good that had no bound.


 * For no eye saw him, while with loving pride—
 * Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied.
 * Must he in conscious trance, dumb, helpless lie
 * While all that ardent kindred passed him by?
 * His flesh cried out to live with living men,
 * And join that soul which to the inward ken
 * Of all the hymning train was present there.
 * Strong passion's daring sees not aught to dare:
 * The frost-locked starkness of his frame low-bent,
 * His voice's penury of tones long spent,
 * He felt not; all his being leaped in flame
 * To meet his kindred as they onward came
 * Slackening and wheeling toward the temple's face:
 * He rushed before them to the glittering space,
 * And, with a strength that was but strong desire,
 * Cried, "I am Jubal, I! . . . I made the lyre!"


 * The tones amid a lake of silence fell
 * Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell
 * Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land
 * To listening crowds in expectation spanned.
 * Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake;
 * They spread along the train from front to wake
 * In one great storm of merriment, while he
 * Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,
 * And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein
 * Of passionate music came with that dream-pain,
 * Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing,
 * And all appearance is mere vanishing.
 * But ere the laughter died from out the rear,
 * Anger in front saw profanation near;
 * Jubal was but a name in each man's faith
 * For glorious power untouched by that slow death
 * Which creeps with creeping time; this too, the spot,
 * And this the day, it must be crime to blot,
 * Even with scoffing at a madman's lie:
 * Jubal was not a name to wed with mockery.


 * Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout
 * In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out,
 * And beat him with their flutes. 'Twas little need;
 * He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,
 * As if the scorn and howls were driving wind
 * That urged his body, serving so the mind
 * Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen
 * Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.
 * The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,
 * While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.
 * He said within his soul, "This is the end:
 * O'er all the earth to where the heavens bend
 * And hem men's travel, I have breathed my soul:
 * I lie here now the remnant of that whole,
 * The embers of a life, a lonely pain;
 * As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,
 * So of my mighty years nought comes to me again.


 * "Is the day sinking? Softest coolness springs
 * From something round me: dewy shadowy wings
 * Enclose me all around — no, not above—
 * Is moonlight there? I see a face of love,
 * Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong:
 * Yea— art thou come again to me, great Song?"


 * The face bent over him like silver night
 * In long-remembered summers; that calm light
 * Of days which shine in firmaments of thought,
 * That past unchangeable, from change still wrought.
 * And there were tones that with the vision blent:
 * He knew not if that gaze the music sent,
 * Or music that calm gaze: to hear, to see,
 * Was but one undivided ecstasy:
 * The raptured senses melted into one,
 * And parting life a moment's freedom won
 * From in and outer, as a little child
 * Sits on a bank and sees blue heavens mild
 * Down in the water, and forgets its limbs,
 * And knoweth nought save the blue heaven that swims.


 * "Jubal," the face said, " I am thy loved Past,
 * The soul that makes thee one from first to last.
 * I am the angel of thy life and death,
 * Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath.
 * Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride
 * Who blest thy lot above all men's beside?
 * Thy bride whom thou wouldst never change, nor take
 * Any bride living, for that dead one's sake?
 * Was I not all thy yearning and delight,
 * Thy chosen search, thy senses' beauteous Right,
 * Which still had been the hunger of thy frame
 * In central heaven, hadst thou been still the same?
 * Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god
 * Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod
 * Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share
 * Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear
 * The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest
 * Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast?
 * No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain,
 * Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain
 * Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate
 * Was human music's self incorporate:
 * Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife
 * Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of life.
 * And greatly hast thou lived, for not alone
 * With hidden raptures were her secrets shown,
 * Buried within thee, as the purple light
 * Of gems may sleep in solitary night;
 * But thy expanding joy was still to give,
 * And with the generous air in song to live
 * Feeding the wave of ever-widening bliss
 * Where fellowship means equal perfectness.
 * And on the mountains in thy wandering
 * Thy feet were beautiful as blossomed spring,
 * That turns the leafless wood to love's glad home,
 * For with thy coming Melody was come.
 * This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow,
 * And that immeasurable life to know
 * From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead,
 * A seed primeval that has forests bred.
 * It is the glory of the heritage
 * Thy life has left, that makes thy outcast age:
 * Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on this sod,
 * Because thou shinest in man's soul, a god,
 * Who found and gave new passion and new joy
 * That nought but Earth's destruction can destroy.
 * Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone:
 * 'Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone
 * For too much wealth amid their poverty."—


 * The words seemed melting into symphony,
 * The wings upbore him, and the gazing song
 * Was floating him the heavenly space along,
 * Where mighty harmonies all gently fell
 * Through veiling vastness, like the far-off bell,
 * Till, ever onward through the choral blue,
 * He heard more faintly and more faintly knew,
 * Quitting mortality, a quenched sun-wave,
 * The All-creating Presence for his grave.


 * 1869