--
What he ever sought of yore
With his spirit's deepeth longing,
Now he seeks in sweat of death,
Seeks--alas! and finds it never.
Though he grasps it clearer now,
Though it grows in living form,
He can never all achieve it,
Nor create it in his thought.
Then the final blow is sounded
From the hammer-stroke of Death,
Breaks the earthly frame asunder,
Seals the eye with final night.
But a mighty host of sounds
Greet him from the space of heaven
With the song he sought below:
Man redeemed,--the world transfigured.
_DON JUAN. (TONE POEM.)_
A score or more of lines from Lenau's poem of the same title stand as
the subject of the music.
O magic realm, illimited, eternal,
Of gloried woman,--loveliness supernal!
Fain would I, in the storm of stressful bliss,
Expire upon the last one's lingering kiss!
Through every realm, O friend, would wing my flight,
Wherever Beauty blooms, kneel down to each,
And, if for one brief moment, win delight!
* * * * *
I flee from surfeit and from rapture's cloy,
Keep fresh for Beauty service and employ,
Grieving the One, that All I may enjoy.
My lady's charm to-day hath breath of spring,
To-morrow may the air of dungeon bring.
When with the new love won I sweetly wander,
No bliss is ours upfurbish'd and regilded;
A different love has This to That one yonder,--
Not up from ruins be my temple builded.
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