AmyLowell:TheRedLacquerMusic

A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought

In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought

With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,

The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled

With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,

Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling

Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;

Petals and apples in high relief, and where the seams

Are worn with handling, through the polished crimson sheen,

Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean.

Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players

Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers

Of music to serve every instrument, are there,

And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear.

It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights,

When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights

And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards,

Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to glint, on hoards

Of scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns, so the old tools

Are little candles throwing brightness round in pools.

With Oriental splendour, red and gold, the dust

Covering its flames like smoke and thinning as a gust

Of brighter sunshine makes the colours leap and range,

The strange old music-stand seems to strike out and change;

To stroke and tear the darkness with sharp golden claws;

To dart a forked, vermilion tongue from open jaws;

To puff out bitter smoke which chokes the sun; and fade

Back to a still, faint outline obliterate in shade.

Creeping up the ladder into the loft, the Boy

Stands watching, very still, prickly and hot with joy.

He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks of red,

He sees it split and stream, and all about his head

Spikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking,

Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nicking

The darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom.

The Boys nose smarts with the pungence in the room.

The wind pushes an elm branch from before the door

And the sun widens out all along the floor,

Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward light,

So not one blurred outline can tease the mind to fright.

O All ye Works of the Lord, Bless

ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him

for ever.

O let the Earth Bless the Lord; Yea, let it Praise Him,

and Magnify Him

for ever.

O ye Mountains and Hills, Bless ye the Lord; Praise

Him, and Magnify Him

for ever.

O All ye Green Things upon the Earth, Bless ye the Lord;

Praise Him,

and Magnify Him for ever.

The Boy will praise his God on an altar builded

fair,

Will heap it with the Works of the Lord. In the morning

air,

Spices shall burn on it, and by their pale smoke curled,

Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World

Shall see the Boys desire to pay his debt of praise.

The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze

An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair

Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair

To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs,

The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks

A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn,

And even a wide sofa has its cane seat torn.

Only in the gloom far in the corner there

The lacquer music-stand is elegant and rare,

Clear and slim of line, with its four wings outspread,

The sound of old quartets, a tenuous, faint thread,

Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme --

Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted scheme!

A candle on the bookcase feels a draught and wavers,

Stippling the white-washed walls with dancing shades and quavers.

A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about the ceiling,

And shadows, strangely altered, stain the walls, revealing

Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry,

And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.

Under the Eastern window, where the morning sun

Must touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each one

Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones,

And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones,

An orioles nest with the four eggs neatly blown,

The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown

Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled

With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled,

Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell,

A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell

The stand will hold no more. The Boy with humming head

Looks once again, blows out the light, and creeps to bed.

The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside the wind

Blows gustily and clear, and slaps against the blind.

He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his ecstasy

It burns his soul to emptiness, and sets it free

For adoration only, for worship. Dedicate,

His unsheathed soul is naked in its novitiate.

The hours strike below from the clock on the stair.

The Boy is a white flame suspiring in prayer.

Morning will bring the sun, the Golden Eye of Him

Whose splendour must be veiled by starry cherubim,

Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the streets of Heaven.

Like an open rose the sun will stand up even,

Fronting the window-sill, and when the casement glows

Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flows

From the sun will fall upon the altar and ignite

The spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light.

Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds will swim,

`Viols damore and `hautbois accorded to a hymn.

The Boy will see the faintest breath of angels wings

Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.

He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyes

Waits upon the daylight and his great emprise.

The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the

wall

When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness, started his ritual.

He washed, all shivering and pointed like a flame.

He threw the shutters open, and in the window-frame

The morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.

He took his Chinese pastilles and put them in a mass

Upon the mantelpiece till he could seek a plate

Worthy to hold them burning. Alas! He had

been late

In thinking of this need, and now he could not find

Platter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.

The house was not astir, and he dared not go down

Into the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blown

And slam before the draught he made as he went out.

The light was growing yellower, and still he looked about.

A flash of almost crimson from the gilded pear

Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting there.

The sun would rise and he would meet it unprepared,

Labelled a fool in having missed what he had dared.

He ran across the room, took his pastilles and laid

Them on the flat-topped pear, most carefully displayed

To light with ease, then stood a little to one side,

Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly tried

To hold it angled so the bunched and prismed rays

Should leap upon each other and spring into a blaze.

Sharp as a wheeling edge of disked, carnation flame,

Gem-hard and cutting upward, slowly the round sun came.

The arrowed fire caught the burning-glass and glanced,

Split to a multitude of pointed spears, and lanced,

A deeper, hotter flame, it took the incense pile

Which welcomed it and broke into a little smile

Of yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling, thrusting up,

A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer cup.

O ye Fire and Heat, Bless ye the Lord;

Praise Him, and Magnify Him

for ever.

O ye Winter and Summer, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him,

and Magnify Him

for ever.

O ye Nights and Days, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him,

and Magnify Him

for ever.

O ye Lightnings and Clouds, Bless ye the Lord; Praise

Him, and Magnify Him

for ever.

A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled,

seeming

A chalice foamed with sunrise. The Boy woke from his

dreaming.

A spike of flame had caught the card of butterflies,

The orioles nest took fire, soon all four galleries

Where he had spread his treasures were become one tongue

Of gleaming, brutal fire. The Boy instantly swung

His pitcher off the wash-stand and turned it upside down.

The flames drooped back and sizzled, and all his senses grown

Acute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt from his bed

And flung it over all, and then with aching head

He watched the early sunshine glint on the remains

Of his holy offering. The lacquer stand had stains

Ugly and charred all over, and where the golden pear

Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably. His dear

Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there,

Winking in the brightness.

The clock upon the stair

Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.

The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.