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| Carl Vilhelm Holsoe |
Music
Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,
Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,
Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,
And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,
Shall not only hear, and feel, but shall not see,
One hour made passionately bright with dreams,
Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleams
Of what we would, and what we cannot be.
Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,
Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,
Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,
Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,
And tones that like far distance make this life
Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad.
Archibald Lampman
"Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad", each one of those words is true of my experience of listening to music. There's nothing like it, is there? I like the image of someone listening to music in the dark. We've all done this, we know what it's like to be in that liquid flow, to have it draw up memories, emotions, colours, scenes. Lampman wrote this before stereos and ipods, so it was more than sound, it was human touch, a moment never to be repeated. How wonderful it is, to experience that.
Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,
Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,
And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,
Shall not only hear, and feel, but shall not see,
One hour made passionately bright with dreams,
Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleams
Of what we would, and what we cannot be.
Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,
Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,
Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,
Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,
And tones that like far distance make this life
Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad.
Archibald Lampman
"Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad", each one of those words is true of my experience of listening to music. There's nothing like it, is there? I like the image of someone listening to music in the dark. We've all done this, we know what it's like to be in that liquid flow, to have it draw up memories, emotions, colours, scenes. Lampman wrote this before stereos and ipods, so it was more than sound, it was human touch, a moment never to be repeated. How wonderful it is, to experience that.
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