The Death of Chopin

Sing to me! Ah, remember howPoor Heine here in Paris leantWatching me play at the fall of dayAnd following where the music went,Till that old cloud upon his browWas almost smoothed away.

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

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

"Do roses in the moonlight glowLike this and this?" I could not seeHis eyes, and yet--they were quite wet,Blinded, I think! What should I beIf in that hour I did not knowMy own diviner debt?

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

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

George Sand. This music once unlockedMy heart, she took the gold she prized:Her novel gleams no richer: dreamsLike mine are best unanalysed:And she forgets her poor bemockedPrince Karol, now, it seems.

I was Prince Karol; yes, and LisztCount Salvator Albani: sheMy Floriani--all so farAway!--My dreams are like the seaThat round Majorca sighed and kissedEach softly mirrored star.

O, what a golden round of hoursOur island villa knew: we twoAlone with sky and sea, the sighOf waves, the warm unfathomed blue;With what a chain of nights like flowersWe bound Love, she and I.

What music, what harmoniousGlad triumphs of the world's desireWhere passion yearns to God and burnsEarth's dross out with its own pure fire,Or tolls like some deep angelusThrough Death's divine nocturnes.

"Do roses in the moonlight glowLike this and this?" What did she thinkOf him whose hands at Love's commandMade Life as honey o'er the brinkOf 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 onePoor sorrow there that like a woundGaped, 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 trodBeethoven's path through storm and night:It is too late now to resumeMy monologue with God.

Well, my lost love, you were so kindIn those old days: ah, yes; you cameWhen I was ill! In dreams you stillWill come? (Do roses always flameBy moonlight, thus?) I, too, grow blindWith wondering if she will.

Yet, Floriani, what am ITo you, though love was life to me?My life consumed like some perfumedPale 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 glowLike this and this--so death may proveBest--ah, how sweet life is!