alight once? Still lives spark enough
For breath to quicken, run the smouldering ash
Red right-through. What, "stone-dead" were fools so rash
As style my Avison, because he lacked
Modern appliance, spread out phrase unracked
By modulations fit to make each hair
Stiffen upon his wig? See there--and there!
I sprinkle my reactives, pitch broadcast
Discords and resolutions, turn aghast
Melody's easy-going, jostle law
With license, modulate (no Bach in awe),
Change enharmonically (Hudl to thank),
And lo, up-start the flamelets,--what was blank
Turns scarlet, purple, crimson! Straightway scanned
By eyes that like new lustre--Love once more
Yearns through the Largo, Hatred as before
Rages in the Rubato: e'en thy March,
My Avison, which, sooth to say--(ne'er arch
Eyebrows in anger!)--timed, in Georgian years
The step precise of British Grenadiers
To such a nicety,--if score I crowd,
If rhythm I break, if beats I vary,--tap
At bar's off-starting turns true thunder-clap,
Ever the pace augmented till--what's here?
Titanic striding toward Olympus!

X

Fear
No such irreverent innovation! Still
Glide on, go rolling, water-like, at will--
Nay, were thy melody in monotone,
The due three-parts dispensed with!

XI

This alone
Comes of my tiresome talking: Music's throne
Seats somebody whom somebody unseats,
And whom in turn--by who knows what new feats
Of strength,--shall somebody as sure push down,
Consign him dispossessed of sceptre, crown,
And orb imperial--whereto?--Never dream
That what once lived shall ever die! They seem
Dead--do they? lapsed things lost in limbo? Bring
Our life to kindle theirs, and straight each king
Starts, you shall see, stands up, from head to foot
No inch that is not Purcell! Wherefore? (Suit
Measure to subject, first--no marching on
Yet in thy bold C Major, Avison,
As suited step a minute since: no: wait--
Into the minor key first modulate--
Gently with A, now--in the Lesser Third!)

The really serious conclusion of the poem amounts to a doctrine of
relativity in art and not only in art but in ethics and religion. It is
a statement in poetry of the prevalent thought of the nineteenth
century, of which the most widely known exponent