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From “The Via Dolorosa of Art”
HIS being started with decision, | |
| Quick as a pair of highstrung horses given the rein, | |
| When the orchestra’s music danced | |
| With his impalpable sensual images. | |
| It was wine-steam to drunken him— | 5 |
| Heavy, rhythmic, plucked gold petals of music, | |
| Floating with sonorous etherealism about him. | |
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| He could not wait when it had ceased: | |
| More could be heard on other nights. | |
| Out to walk with his head amongst the stars, | 10 |
| With the sky standing straight before him, | |
| He went, breathing the poignant night, drugged, | |
| Knowing the moon was a diadem for his head. | |
| And the slow sensuous ecstasies | |
| Of music that his mind could not quite catch … | 15 |
| Only he was living … music … | |
| Many times he had thought how sufficient life would be | |
| Could a man dance the motion he feels, | |
| And sing the songs within him. | |
| But when your limbs fail you … | 20 |
| When your voice will not ascend…? | |
| But tonight, he would make music, | |
| Music that was virile and barbarous. | |
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| He could see electric threads of clipped blue | |
| Dancing from positive to negative electric poles | 25 |
| In music. | |
| He could hear color, movement, and noises. | |
| He could see music that pictured the flow of generations | |
| Into life—impetuous, rushing, gleaming with flesh and sunlight and darkness. | |
| The shriek of maddened prehistoric brutes was in his ears— | 30 |
| They were waging battle to death, wading in blood, | |
| Fighting for the preservation of their species, | |
| Deep in the tangled forest. | |
| The dissonances of many insects rasping shrilly, | |
| The silence for moments of murderous insect warfare— | 35 |
| He could hear music that was a history of sound | |
| Since the world began. | |
| … the lighted city streets ran ahead of him | |
| Like slender gold lizards basking in the moonlight…. | |
| So many years the moon, too well known, | 40 |
| Had irked him for being no exotic moon … | |
| … tonight, he would compose music, | |
| Free music, for the soul, the intellect— | |
| Not honey in the listener’s ear: | |
| The dolorous drip of harps, | 45 |
| The sob of bass violins, | |
| Catgut moaning mindless sorrow. | |
| He would write music, something of sweetness too: | |
| The pipes of goat-herds on Athenian hills; | |
| Slim girls chanting for religious ceremonies, | 50 |
| And dancing, love in their limbs where worship should be; | |
| The clash of knights’ armor in tournament, | |
| All coming to the climax of subways clamoring in tunnels. | |
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| And other sounds…. | |
| Far-away train whistles, fog’s-horn on the bay; | 55 |
| Aliens singing their native songs, | |
| Hunched in drab haunts of a metropolis; | |
| Chinese—discordant falsetto babblings, | |
| Pale yellow notes descending in eighth tones…. | |
| He would write music … there would be no more loneliness | 60 |
| Of the soul for him. He would reach back through the ages, | |
| Reach forth to the future for companions of his spirit, | |
| And his music would touch them as with understanding hands. | |
| He was through with themes and composition: | |
| Only kaleidoscopic resoundings, playing upon the nerves, | 65 |
| Awakening the instinct memory of people | |
| With their jeering, gentle, maniacal, forgiving heterogeneity. | |
| Negroes would run, quick blood in their hearts, | |
| As progenitors in Africa had run centuries ago— | |
| Savages in a religious dance shrieking fear | 70 |
| At some demon’s wrath because storm and lightning | |
| Has broken in upon their ceremonies; | |
| The bellowing of a rhinoceros bull as he rushed | |
| To gore the huntsman whose arrow had wounded him; | |
| The trumpet of elephant herds stampeding, panic-stricken, | 75 |
| Through the forest, tearing aside small trees as they rush; | |
| The rumble of bison hoofs beating endlessly over plains | |
| With Indians whooping in pursuit of them: | |
| … He would write music such that one would hear | |
| The rush of the stream of life— | 80 |
| Music of evolution … | |
| The sibilant hiss of snakes fading into | |
| The flap of reptilian bird-wings … | |
| The satin swish of sea-species leaving the waters | |
| To go forth upon the land, prospering as land-beast | 85 |
| Or going toward extinction … music just the same … | |
| Washed scarlet tones, high, persistent and dissonant. | |
| He needed such music for the rhythm of his blood, | |
| Such music for the vehement dance restrained within him … | |
| A mad, wild dance … limbs breaking, bones cracking, | 90 |
| A dance hurtling the sky, a life dance. | |
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| He would make music … yes, such, such music. | |
| He intended to make music. | |
| And he turned at the corner near his boarding-house. | |
| The same cats were making love in the same way | 95 |
| As they had made love for the three dull months of summer. | |
| The same pastry-shop stood in front of him … | |
| … the same dark room, the same gas-light in its grayness | |
| Awaited him. He would make music … music of tedium too. | |
| Yes, tomorrow, music … tonight— | 100 |
| He needed coffee and doughnuts, to sleep well— | |
| And then … such music … tomorrow … | |
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