POETRY.
RUBINSTEIN : AN IMPRESSION. WHERE Piccadilly's torrent meets a weir By crowded portals in the sultry air, Once moving with the stream, my eyes met there A Sphinx-like countenance, prophetic, rare.
'Twas strange amidst so much Of life to ask what touch Had printed on those lips the look they bear.
The head was held erect, impassive, wise; The witness unto grief was in the eyes, Withdrawn from sense, twin, dumb, grey mysteries ; He moved like one whom sleep loth mesmerise, Who neither sees nor hears Things near ; while in his ears Perchance old Ocean sings low lullabies.
O Rubinstein l enchantment's wild, sweet note You pour thro' strings like bird from living throat.
Deep elemental calm, grief's antidote, Breathes thro' your thunder's passion tones that float On wings of melody When your hands lingeringly To Sound and Art their magic powers devote.
Thus yesterday ; but even then in store , - Was felt to-day's refrain of Nevermore.
The bitter-sweet of Song unique is o'er; Writ in no book is Rubinstein's Tone-lore.
Death's frozen kiss has sealed What Art to you revealed find made your eyes so strange eight years before.
BLANCHE WARRE CORNISH.
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