Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (620 page)

Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet,

The tone’s melodic change and rhythmic beat:

‘Twas 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, “I 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

Nought 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

Like myriad 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,

‘ ‘Tis 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 nought 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 intwine

With my skly-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;