Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HERE IS MUSIC: EPILOGUE, by AUSTIN PHILIPS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HERE IS MUSIC: EPILOGUE, by                    
First Line: If, even as goethe, women's tears
Last Line: Twin things beget true artists ... Love and cruelty.
Subject(s): Children; Love; Singing & Singers; Youth; Childhood


IF, even as Goethe, women's tears
Have moved me overmuch, and eyes
With suffering filled fierce fealties
Have waked like wingèd messengers
From out the Past, remembrancers
That stablished strange, quick dynasties
Over my heart ... full sure the course
Of these had rise in far-off source
And, striking deep sub-conscious note
Within my midmost being, wrought
Like magic, conjured back mysteriously
Sweet childhood's happy hours and days when we—
We two, though drifting, driv'n, drawn apart
By him who, life-long, lurking, frown'd athwart
Our natural loves in hateful tyranny—
Still stood as one, despite my father's swart,
Abnormal, morbid, black and hideous jealousy.

If in my major loves (a lonely man,
Wandering these forty years the World's wide face!)
I have stopped and stayed at periods, parked a space
An else unresting caravan,
Set down self-borne, self-urged sedan,
Seen, as it seemed, from Life's hot race
Mine ancient task confront me, read
In hapless eyes unspoken need
For help, sensed Beauty in distress,
Reacted with inevitableness. ...
If I have thus, at moments, halted, turned
My steps, stood still, looked, longed and yearned
To comfort, thus found instinct, urge more strong
Than cold conventional sense of Right and Wrong,
What has it been but that a path, once traced
Within my boyhood's brain, untravelled long,
Ached to renew emotions, exquisite, deep-enchased.

What has it been but that sweet habit, formed
In almost infancy, persists, pursues
Lasting and life-long, steadfastly imbues
Man's being with old yearnings such as charmed
His soul in babyhood, which burn, re-warmed,
By laws infrangible whose force renews
Itself implacably when once again
It finds a like electric chain. ...?
What has it been but that your son
(To whom you showed sharp sorrow none
Else was allowed to see, what cruel time
My father planned and perfected the crime
Of crushing you and severing us) who found
High Heaven Itself in striving to afford
You sympathy in heart, unspoken word,
And thereby touched the very stars, no less,
Should sense, in after days, like sweet accord
And outlet for his past and present tenderness?

My father won. The splendid strength in you,
The pitiable weakness, that brave blood
Of three New England centuries—e'er at feud
With, and e'er victor over, almost two
Cornish millennia—triumphed yet anew. ...
Bade you, self-conqueror, sink to servitude,
Urged you, incapable of compromise,
Fulfil not half but all the sacrifice,
Set me aside (in monstrous effort made
Against your nature, desperately afraid
To fail!) grow cruel, suffering secretly,
Punish yourself by savageness towards me,
Sever sweet union, harsh, disorientate
Me thus affection-starved, make desolate
My soul and spirit, till I came to see
Your faults not virtues, boyish-visioned rate
You no more mother, but my life-long enemy.

Life has brought knowledge, likewise loftier view.
I know your virtues now. I understand
The gallant spiritual strength with which you slew
What you held weakness, struggled to subdue
A woman's inmost instincts, broke the bond
'Twixt little son and youthful mother, threw
Me to the Wolf named Loneliness, and left
My hungry heart in hopeless lack, bereft
Of that which, once aroused, had come to be
Moral and absolute necessity. ...
I can forgive—I who have passed through fires
Fierce as once flamed on high funereal pyres.
I can forgive. Nay, more, I can rejoice
You took such road, you made that fearful choice,
Thus saw me choose the path I walk to-day,
Ten times aware that Sorrow was the price
Which made an Artist of Love's ancient castaway.

The Jesuits say, "Give us the first seven years
Of a child's life—who wills may have the rest!—
And we shall mould him." Mine own life was blest
By mother's love but four. Mid unshed tears
I walked in woe the residue, my wrong recessed
Deep in my soul, with sworn discouragers
(You and my father!) as my mentors, fought
My secret battle, out of conflict wrought
And builded better than I knew, became
An individual, not a type nor tame
Echo of others, watched, endured and strove,
Kept cruel course, blunder'd and err'd, for love
Looked oft in vain ... what time Love came to stir
Me, loved (as long ago) where character,
Beauty and strength and weakness called and craved
For help and yearned to me as comforter,
But stayed to serve their tyrant, steadfastly enslaved.

Comfort and love I gave, passion and peace
(For where love is potential passion lies!)
I found and knew, discovered glad surcease
Of restlessness awhile, had strange, sweet ease,
Felt heart, soul, body fuse and harmonize,
Shared in a thousand glad felicities,
Succoured, encouraged, strengthened, fortified,
Material sustenence, spiritual help supplied,
Poured out my all with eager, lavish hand,
Gave of my slender store with foolish fond,
Unreckoning readiness ... from loving lips
Heard whispered wish for flight ... found once more Whips
Of Anguish flail me, since the She I served,
Made strong, made weak, irresolute, faltered, swerved
From long'd-for course ... and, as in far-off days
My mother, at the crisis-hour, unnerved,
Sent me, despite desire, to walk, alone, fresh ways.

Always my mother—draped in differing dress.
Always one woman in a new disguise
And wrapped in fresh environment, no wise
Other than of old time. First fathomless,
True understanding, mutual tenderness. ...
Then frail, strong urge toward self-sacrifice,
Which immolated each and sent me on,
Once more Love's Wandering Jew, 'neath stranger sun,
To dree my weird, to seek sensation placed
Long since as on palimpsest, ne'er effaced
And ne'er effaceable; at every stage
To grow, through past and present pilgrimage,
A deeper man, a surer singer, be
Ever more individual, so win free
Of alien influences, a soul apart. ...
At last to find Love's gracious granary
Within no woman's eyes, but in mine own full heart.

A deeper man. A surer singer. Yes,
But always yours, the boy you bore, loved, formed,
Betrothed to Art, blooded to Beauty, charmed
With speaking voice and singing, showed distress
Which waked such wealth of latent tenderness,
Forsook in faithless faithfulness, disarmed,
Discouraged, damned, disorientated, drave
For ever from your side, destroyed ... to save
And make him, send him, (leper, outcast son,
Scapegoat and alien) strong to stand alone,
To utter his own thoughts, not echo those
His shallow sire, cold kinsfolk would impose. ...
In short, to express the real rebellious you,
To live your crushed, drab life afresh, anew,
To break barbarian bonds, to dare, fight free,
To learn to suffer and endure—learn, too,
Twin things beget true Artists ... Love and Cruelty.





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