Poem by Alfred Noyes

The Death of Chopin

Sing to me! Ah, remember how
  Poor Heine here in Paris leant
Watching me play at the fall of day
  And following where the music went,
Till that old cloud upon his brow
  Was almost smoothed away.

"Do roses in the moonlight flame
  Like this and this?" he said and smiled;
Then bent his head as o'er his dead
  Brother might breathe some little child
The accustomed old half-jesting name,
  With all its mockery fled,

Like summer lightnings, far away,
  In heaven. O, what Bohemian nights
We passed down there for that brief year
  When art revealed her last delights;
And then, that night, that night in May
  When Hugo came to hear!

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
  Like this and this?" I could not see
His eyes, and yet--they were quite wet,
  Blinded, I think! What should I be
If in that hour I did not know
  My own diviner debt?

For God has made this world of ours
  Out of His own exceeding pain,
As here in art man's bleeding heart
  Slow drop by drop completes the strain;
And dreams of death make sweet the flowers
  Where lovers meet to part.

Recall, recall my little room
  Where all the masters came that night,
Came just to hear me, Meyerbeer,
  Lamartine, Balzac; and no light
But my two candles in the gloom;
  Though she, she too was there,

George Sand. This music once unlocked
  My heart, she took the gold she prized:
Her novel gleams no richer: dreams
  Like mine are best unanalysed:
And she forgets her poor bemocked
  Prince Karol, now, it seems.

I was Prince Karol; yes, and Liszt
  Count Salvator Albani: she
My Floriani--all so far
  Away!--My dreams are like the sea
That round Majorca sighed and kissed
  Each softly mirrored star.

O, what a golden round of hours
  Our island villa knew: we two
Alone with sky and sea, the sigh
  Of waves, the warm unfathomed blue;
With what a chain of nights like flowers
  We bound Love, she and I.

What music, what harmonious
  Glad triumphs of the world's desire
Where passion yearns to God and burns
  Earth's dross out with its own pure fire,
Or tolls like some deep angelus
  Through Death's divine nocturnes.

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
  Like this and this?" What did she think
Of him whose hands at Love's command
  Made Life as honey o'er the brink
Of Death drip slow, darkling and slow?
  Ah, did she understand?

She studied every sob she heard,
  She watched each dying hope she found;
And yet she understood not one
  Poor sorrow there that like a wound
Gaped, bleeding, pleading--for one word--
  No? And the dream was done.

For her--I am "wrapped in incense gloom,
  In drifting clouds and golden light;"
Once I was shod with fire and trod
  Beethoven's path through storm and night:
It is too late now to resume
  My monologue with God.

Well, my lost love, you were so kind
  In those old days: ah, yes; you came
When I was ill! In dreams you still
  Will come? (Do roses always flame
By moonlight, thus?) I, too, grow blind
  With wondering if she will.

Yet, Floriani, what am I
  To you, though love was life to me?
My life consumed like some perfumed
  Pale altar-flame beside the sea:
You stood and smiled and watched it die!
  You, you whom it illumed,
Could you not feed it with your love?
  Am I not starving here and now?
Sing, sing! I'd miss no smile or kiss--
  No roses in Majorca glow
Like this and this--so death may prove
  Best--ah, how sweet life is!

1. The Escape of the Old Grey Squirrel
2. Earth-Bound
3. Fishers of Men
4. Kilmeny
5. The Trumpet Call

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