MUSIC AND VISION
On seeing a blinded Airman at a recital given by Schnabel, Royal Albert Hall, Friday, May 17th, 7946.
Music gives now the form and pattern Which once came to himl through Vision, Though yet he sees in bright confusion Fast-fading images renewing Their shapes in .bright original splendour.
As Memory feels her way in dream, And stumbles on the haunting landscape In dream recurring, till that day When suddenly looking with startled eyes We see that lost dream-landscape blossom With sudden brilliance of bright day And the dreamer wakes in the land of his dream.
But he lives in this world of dreaming: Seeks to recall the shapes of day, To crystallise Laocoon forms
Which glide through his mind in a hurrying- stream
While colour and shape dissolve, and never
Rests the conclusive, immobile image;
The Music mounts its shining ladders In vaulted space until a small Terrible inescapable track Obliterates those trivial forms He struggles after : fills his heart With forms that have no visible shape, With pure form and light which lies Within his heart, and brings him sights Beyond the blindness of his eyes.
SHEILA SHANNON.
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