WHITMAN. PROUD MUSIC OF THE STORM. 1 PROUD music of the storm! 1 Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert, Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless, 2 2 Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire; Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, 3 A festival song! The duet of the bridegroom and the bride-a marriage-march, With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with love; The red-flush'd cheeks, and perfumes-the cortege swarming, full of friendly faces, young and old, To flutes' clear notes, and sounding harps' cantabile. 4 Now loud approaching drums! 3 Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn, but flying? the rout of the baffled? Hearest those shouts of a conquering army? 5 (Ah, Soul, the sobs of women-the wounded groaning in agony, The hiss and crackle of flames-the blacken'd ruins-the embers of cities, The dirge and desolation of mankind.) 4 6 Now airs antique and medieval fill me; I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals; I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love; I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages. Now the great organ sounds, 5 Tremulous-while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth, On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend, All shapes of beauty, grace, and strength-all hues we know, Green blades of grass, and warbling birds-children that gambol and play-the clouds of heaven above,) The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not, Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest-maternity of all the rest; And with it every instrument in multitudes, The players playing-all the world's musicians, The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration, All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals, The measureless sweet vocalists of ages; And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason, Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves; A new composite orchestra-binder of years and climes-ten-fold renewer, As of the far-back days the poets tell-the Paradiso, The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done, The journey done, the Journeyman come home, And Man and Art, with Nature fused again. 8 Tutti! for Earth and Heaven! 6 The Almighty Leader now for me, for once, has signal'd with his wand. 9 The manly strophe of the husbands of the world, And all the wives responding. 10 The tongues of violins! (I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself; This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.) 11 Ah, from a little child, 7 Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music; (The voice-O tender voices-memory's loving voices! The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn, The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand, The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream, The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south, The psalm in the country church, or, mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting, The fiddler in the tavern-the glee, the long-strung sailor-song, The lowing cattle, bleating sheep-the crowing cock at dawn. 8 12 All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me, 13 Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion, Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand. 14 I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam; Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd. 15 I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, Amid the scent of night - roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand, Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.. 16 To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven, 17 From Spanish chestnut-trees' dense shade, By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song, Song of lost love-the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair, Song of the dying swan-Fernando's heart is breaking. 18 Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings; Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy. 19 (The teeming lady comes! The lustrious orb-Venus contralto-the blooming mother, Sister of loftiest gods-Alboni's self I hear.) 9 20 I hear those odes, symphonies, operas; I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people; I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert; Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan. 10 21 I hear the dance-music of all nations, The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss ;) The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets. 22 I see religious dances, old and new; I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre; I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the Cross on high, to the clang of cymbals ; I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic 23 I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other; I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their weapons, As they fall on their knees, and rise again. 24 I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling; I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, But silent, strange, devout-rais'd, glowing heads-ecstatic faces.) 11 25 I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings, The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen ; The sacred imperial hymns of China, To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone ;) Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina, A band of bayaderes. 12 26 Now Asia, Africa leave me-Europe, seizing, inflates me; To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices, Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott; Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa; Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd windows, The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis. |