The Red Lacquer Music-Stand

A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since broughtIn some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wroughtWith bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolledWith vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirlingOut on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;Petals and apples in high relief, and where the seamsAre 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 playersSitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layersOf 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 flightsAnd skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards,Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to glint, on hoardsOf scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns, so the old toolsAre little candles throwing brightness round in pools.With Oriental splendour, red and gold, the dustCovering its flames like smoke and thinning as a gustOf 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 fadeBack to a still, faint outline obliterate in shade.Creeping up the ladder into the loft, the BoyStands 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 headSpikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking,Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nickingThe darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom.The Boy's nose smarts with the pungence in the room.The wind pushes an elm branch from before the doorAnd 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.

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 WorldShall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise.The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gazeAn altar meet and worthy, but each table and chairHas some defect, each piece is needing some repairTo perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs,The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacksA 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 thereThe 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, revealingEagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry,And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.Under the Eastern window, where the morning sunMust touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each oneOf its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones,And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones,An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown,The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brownButternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaledWith 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-mellThe stand will hold no more. The Boy with humming headLooks once again, blows out the light, and creeps to bed.

The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside the windBlows gustily and clear, and slaps against the blind.He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his ecstasyIt burns his soul to emptiness, and sets it freeFor 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 HimWhose 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 glowsRose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flowsFrom the sun will fall upon the altar and igniteThe spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light.Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds will swim,'Viols d'amore' and 'hautbois' accorded to a hymn.The Boy will see the faintest breath of angels' wingsFanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyesWaits upon the daylight and his great emprise.

The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the wallWhen 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-frameThe morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.He took his Chinese pastilles and put them in a massUpon the mantelpiece till he could seek a plateWorthy to hold them burning. Alas! He had been lateIn thinking of this need, and now he could not findPlatter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.The house was not astir, and he dared not go downInto the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blownAnd 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 pearUpon 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 laidThem on the flat-topped pear, most carefully displayedTo light with ease, then stood a little to one side,Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly triedTo hold it angled so the bunched and prismed raysShould 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 pileWhich welcomed it and broke into a little smileOf yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling, thrusting up,A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer cup.

A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled, seemingA chalice foamed with sunrise. The Boy woke from his dreaming.A spike of flame had caught the card of butterflies,The oriole's nest took fire, soon all four galleriesWhere he had spread his treasures were become one tongueOf gleaming, brutal fire. The Boy instantly swungHis pitcher off the wash-stand and turned it upside down.The flames drooped back and sizzled, and all his senses grownAcute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt from his bedAnd flung it over all, and then with aching headHe watched the early sunshine glint on the remainsOf his holy offering. The lacquer stand had stainsUgly and charred all over, and where the golden pearHad been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably. His dearTreasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there,Winking in the brightness.The clock upon the stairStruck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.