New Zealand Verse/A Parable of Fiddles

CLIV.

A Parable of Fiddles.

Seeing we are as viols to His hand,
I know not whether we should hope or fear
That He should smite a music out of us,
As out of Lear, or Goriot, or Satan—
A tangled wisp of music as from bells
Wind-swung and angry, or a comet-blaze
Of hell-hot harmonies grown slowly cool.

All round His workshop we hang, dusty, silent;
Will it be wild caprice, or deep design,
Shall move His hand toward this brother or that,
Toward you or me?
Will He, like fierce old Saul,
Meshed in a toil of cross desires and fears,
Smooth out the ragged discord of His soul
With some sweet elvish moonlight melody,
As of a lost breeze in the elms of Heaven,
Then break His instrument in ape-like fury,
So that we shriek once and are still for ever?

Or will He, toying with a single string,
While we lie yet half-made, draw out crude trills,
Mad turns and sweeps, and soulless tremolos,
A hideous parody of music sweet,
Then dash us to the floor as all unfit
For airs divine and themes of Paradise?

Or shall we meekly pray that we may hang
Mellowing, peaceable, voiceless to the end,
Gathering dust upon the workshop wall?

Arnold Wall.