Balmont
In my dreams I pursued the fleeting shadows
The fleeting shadows of the darkening day,
I climbed the tower and the staircase trembled,
The staircase trembled beneath my feet.

The higher I went, the clearer I pictured
The clearer I pictured the shape of the land
And strange sounds rang out around me,
Rang out around me from Heaven and Earth.

The higher I climbed, the brighter shone,
The brighter shone the dreaming peaks,
And with a parting glow, seemed to caress,
Sweetly caress my bleary sight.

And beneath me night had already fallen,
Night had fallen over sleeping Earth,
For me the sun was shining,
Afar, a burning sun died out.

I learned to catch the fleeting shadows,
The fleeting shadows of dimming day,
And I climbed ever higher and the staircase trembled,
The staircase trembled beneath my feet.

This is by the Hon. Roden Noel, author also of "A Modern Faust" and "A Philosophy of Immortality". Elgar set his "Sea Slumber Song" as the first of the "Sea Pictures" opus 37. Noel had a sense stronger than have most for the adjectival in language.



                MYSTIC MUSIC

    FAINT memory of a dreamborn tune,
    Muffled low the music sounded,
    But the same air, reforming soon,
    More lovely, ever more abounded,
    Broke bonds wherein the silence wound it,
    Growing more articulate
    From hidden orchestras that mould it,
    Assumed a more majestic state,
    Labyrinthine flower unfolded
    Hourly by the breath of spring,
    Until the Harmony all glorious
    Rose on strong, expansive wing
    Dominating, pealed victorious,
    Erst budding, dim-divined thing;
    Now the elate exultant hearer
    Feels his heart arrived at home,
    While that pæan ever clearer
    With thunder-roll expands the dome;
    His heart, a royal-ported swan,
    Sails the sound, where wondrous vision
    As by some harbour-river shone--
    Dream-palace fronts, the world's derision,
    Deemed fancies vain! arow they flank
    The flower-terraced shore; but pinion
    Of the eagle-music sank;
    Fell from that sublime dominion.
    So a fountain fails and flows.
    The organised high strain reverted
    To formless murmur whence it rose,
    The hearer's heart dropped disconcerted,   
    The flower withered to a close;
    All the glowing glories faded,
    Common day oppressed the view,
    Dream-palace frontage blurred and shaded;
    And yet, ah yet, he hears anew
    Evolving order from confusion,
    The rhymic travail throbbing low,
    Reforming kosmos; no illusion,
    Whatever comrades named it so,
    For he knew the breathing chorus
    Not from him alone did flow;
    Like spring-tides of the ocean, bore us,
    Pealing at full-flood again,
    To goals beyond the primal strain,
    More vital even, rich, sonorous,
    Fed on failure, want and pain.
    He knew the anthem re-created
    Ever by the general soul,
    The human soul with nature mated,
    Who lives to organise the whole,
    That would fain evade control;
    So the God grows formed within us,
    And without us in the world;
    Till the spheral music win us,
    And our weary wings unfurled
    Young, unwearying, unhasting,
    Fulfil their high emprise, while resting.

       April 1893.

A 'fascinating and seriously worthwhile' poem, as the estimable Mr Grew commented when earlier today, spurred on by his mention of sibyls, I posted it in another thread. As I noted there, it is a kind of sonnet.

It does not, I feel, look entirely 'well' on the computer screen, having some of the characteristic notational oddities of its maker Gerard Manley Hopkins, but those notational oddities are part of what makes it one of the most extraordinary poems I know, so I post it here and beg the reader's indulgence for its slightly untidy appearance. Some things just look better on the printed page.


SPELT FROM SIBYL'S LEAVES

Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, | vaulty, voluminous, — stupendous
Evening strains to be tíme's vást, | womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, | her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, | stárs principal, overbend us,
Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth | her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, a-
stray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; | self ín self steeded and páshed—qúite
Disremembering, dísmémbering | áll now. Heart, you round me right
With: Óur évening is over us; óur night | whélms, whélms, ánd will end us.

Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish | damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black,
Ever so black on it. Óur tale, O óur oracle! | Lét life, wáned, ah lét life wind
Off hér once skéined stained véined variety | upon, áll on twó spools; párt, pen, páck
Now her áll in twó flocks, twó folds—black, white; | right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind
But thése two; wáre of a wórld where bút these | twó tell, each off the óther; of a rack
Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, | thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.

Thank you for the Balmont, Madame T-P! Of course Rachmaninoff's are among the most beautiful settings of his work.

Why we wonder is his name sometimes transcribed as "Bal'mont" with an apostrophe after the Bal?

Mr. Sydney Grew,
Thank you for your interest in Russian poetry, Russian music and Russian language. Thank you for your interest in my post.
Russian language has two L sounds. One is hard L and the other is soft. Some times they ingnore it in translation, and some times They put ' sign.
This is a capital letter L in Russian with a soft sign next to it. ЛЬ. Balmont has soft sign in his name: Бальмонт. The first letter is B then A then L and an indication that it is a soft one and m o n t. Russian alphabet is not that difficult or even different from Latin. The language is difficult to learn. I know a few English people that have perfect Russian (they specialize in Chechov's writing).

Please allow me to say that I enjoy your posts and always read them, though many of them are controversial. Usually your posts generate a lot of responses and good discussions.
Please forgive my imperfect English.
tp
PS You know Rachmaninoff Romances (Songs) very well. It impresses me very much.

Saturday Review on Radio 4 had a discussion on Auden reading his own work "in performance" and they mentioned in passing a recording of Eliot reading from the Wasteland. On "listen again" if interested.

I need to make some time to savour some of the other stuff posted here recently, but may I pass this link on to you. A mixed bill of fare with the centrepiece (see right of the panel) of Walt Whitmans' "Song of Myself"
performed three tenors style (one of whom is the late Alan Ginsberg). 35 minutes of sheer intensity.

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2007/05/05/index.html

p.s link doesnt work directly-if you open the main page via error not found you can follow the link 'about the May 5th show'
to the archive page as above.