Paderewski

IF songs were perfume, color, wild desire; If poet's words were fire That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins; If with a bird-like thrill the moments throbbed to hours; If summer's rains Turned drop by drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers; If God made flowers with light and music in them, And saddened hearts could win them; If loosened petals touched the ground With a caressing sound; If love's eyes uttered word No listening lover e'er before had heard; If silent thoughts spake with a bugle's voice; If flame passed into song and cried, 'Rejoice! Rejoice!' If words could picture life's, hope's, heaven's eclipse When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips; If all of mortal woe Struck on one heart with breathless blow on blow; If melody were tears, and tears were starry gleams That shone in evening's amethystine dreams; Ah, yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue, Trembling to earth in dew; Or if the boreal pulsings, rose and white, Made a majestic music in the night; If all the orbs lost in the light of day In the deep, silent blue began their harps to play; And when in frightening skies the lightnings flashed And storm-clouds crashed, If every stroke of light and sound were but excess of beauty; If human syllables could quick refashion That fierce electric passion; If other art could match (as were the poet's duty) The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder Of that keen hour of wonder, — That light as if of heaven, that blackness as of hell, — How the great master played then might I dare to tell. II How the great master played! And was it he Or some disbodied spirit which had rushed From silence into singing; and had crushed Into one startled hour a life's felicity, And highest bliss of knowledge —that all life, grief, wrong, Turn at the last to beauty and to song!