MARSYAS

Not ambition and not power, love nor luxury nor fame,
Beckoned him to join their pageant, summoned Marsyas by name,

But the sorceries of music, note and rapture, tone and thrill,
Sounding the serene enchantment over meadow, stream and hill,
Blew for him the undesisting magic call-note, followed still.

And he followed. Heart of wonder, how the keen blue smoke upcurled

On a stream bank lay the idler dreaming dreams—for it was Spring—
And he heard the frogs in chorus make the watery marshes ring;
Heard new comers at their nesting in the vineyards pipe and sing;

Hark! What piercing unknown cry comes stealing o’er the forest ground,
Pouring sense and soul together in an ecstasy new-found?

Then it pauses, and the youth beyond the river-bend perceives
A divine one in her beauty stand, half-hidden by the leaves,
Fingering a wondrous wood-pipe, whence the clear sound joys or grieves.

As he looked, entranced and musing at the marvel of the strain,

But Athene, glancing downward in the silver of the stream,
As she fluted, saw her perfect mouth distorted by a seam;
Faltered, stopped, and, disconcerted, seemed to ponder half in dream

All the cunning life that filled it quenched and spilt and flung away,
To go seaward to oblivion on a wandering stream. But stay!

Stooped and picked it from the water; put the treasure-trove to lip;
Blown his first breath, faint yet daring; felt the wild notes crowd and slip
Into melody and meaning from each testing finger-tip.

Then, ah, then had mortal spirit sweep and room at last to range

All of beauty, all of knowledge, all of wonder, fused and caught
In the rhythmus of the music, weaving out of sense and thought
And a touch of love the fabric out of which the world was wrought.

Touched the sheep-bells in the meadow, moved the rushes in the stream,
And suffused the youth with glory as he passed from theme to theme;

Ah, what secret, what enchantment so could help the human need,
Save the breath of life that lingered in the hollow of the reed,
Since the careless mouth of beauty blessed it—with so little heed?

There he stood, a youth transfigured in the young world’s golden glow.

There he stands for us in picture, with the pipe whereon he plays; 
The slow, large-eyed cattle wonder, and the flocks forget to graze,
While upon the hill a shepherd turns and listens in amaze.

In the woods the timid creatures, reassured, approach and peer,
Half aware the charm’s allurement they must follow as they hear
Is the first far-looked-for presage of the banishment of fear.

Silence falls upon the woodland, quiet settles on the plain;
Earth and air and the blue heaven, without harm or taint or stain,

Thus the player at his piping in the early mode and grave
Took form Wisdom the inventress what the earth in bounty gave,
And therein to round completion put the beating heart and brave.

So, you artists and musicians, earth awaits perfection still;

Love be therefore all your passion, the one ardour that ye spend
To enhance the craft’s achievement with significance and trend,
Making faultless the wild strain that else were faulty to the end.