# The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884)/The Legend of Jubal

Illustrations by W. St. John Harper: #f293, #f303
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
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 bird's 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 orbéd 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 palm the tresses soft, Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly, Or little burdened 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!—'t is 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, "'T will 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 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 pains 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 spikéd 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 disks; 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 naught, 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 enlargéd 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 seemed 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 struggling 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 put 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
"Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song."
​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 throngéd 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 to 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 quire 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 wingéd 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 climbed on by 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 entrancéd 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; Felt 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 ringéd 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 gazing elders rose 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 naught 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: ​'T was 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, "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 Naught 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 — Myriads of 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 ''T is 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 naught 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 entwine With my sky-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 outspread, 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 quire, 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?— 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 strowed The light of music through the vague of sound, Ached with its 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.
"He sought the screen
Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen."
​Must lie 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. 'T was 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 naught 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 gentlest tones were 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 naught 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 naught but Earth's destruction can destroy. Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone: 'T was 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