The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

1. Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814), a German different from the brisk staccato rhythms of "A priest and musician, held the honorary title of Toccata of Galuppi's." Abbe or Abt (abbot). As a composer, teacher, and 2. A compact organ called the orchestrion. designer of musical instruments he was well 3. According to Jewish legend, King Solomon known in his own day, but he was most famous as (because he possessed a seal inscribed with the an extemporizer at the organ. Browning's soliloquy "ineffable Name" of God) had the power of comrepresents Vogler at the organ joyfully improvising pelling the demons of earth and air to perform his a piece of music and then reflecting on the ephem-bidding. eral existence of such a unique work of art and of 4. Immediately. its possible relation to God's purposes in heaven 5. Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings 7.8). and on earth. 6. Firmly established. A characteristic feature of "Abt Vogler" is the use 7. On festival nights the dome of Saint Peter's in of exceptionally long sentences, densely packed Rome is illuminated by a series of lights ignited by with details, which may evoke the effects of rolling a torchbearer. organ music. The resulting movement is markedly

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1304 / ROBERT BROWNING

4

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;

And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,

As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:

Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,

Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;

Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,

For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

5

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,

Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,8

Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,

Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;

Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,

But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:

What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;

And what is�shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.

6

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,

All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,

All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,

Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonderworth:

Had I written the same, made verse�still, effect proceeds from cause,

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;

It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,

Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled�

7

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.9

Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught;

It is everywhere in the world�loud, soft, and all is said:

Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:

And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

8

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;

Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;

For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,

That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.

Never to be again! But many more of the kind

As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?

To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind

To the same, same self, same love, same God: aye, what was, shall be.

8. The original or archetypal form of a species. 9. I.e., the musician's combining of three notes "Presences": beings of the future, not yet existing, into a new harmonic unit is a creative act as miracwho are "lured" into life by the music (line 36). ulous as the creation of a star.

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RABBI BEN EZRA / 1305

9

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!1

What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;

The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

10

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.

it

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence