To The One Of Fictive Music

• Sister and mother and diviner love,
• And of the sisterhood of the living dead
• Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
• And of the fragrant mothers the most dear
• And queen, and of diviner love the day
• And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
• Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
• Its venom of renown, and on your head
• No crown is simpler than the simple hair.
• Now, of the music summoned by the birth
• That separates us from the wind and sea,
• Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,
• By being so much of the things we are,
• Gross effigy and simulacrum, none
• Gives motion to perfection more serene
• Than yours, out of our own imperfections wrought,
• Most rare, or ever of more kindred air
• In the laborious weaving that you wear.
• For so retentive of themselves are men
• That music is intensest which proclaims
• The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,
• And of all the vigils musing the obscure,
• That apprehends the most which sees and names,
• As in your name, an image that is sure,
• Among the arrant spices of the sun,
• O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom
• We give ourselves our likest issuance.
• Yet not too like, yet not so like to be
• Too near, too clear, saving a little to endow
• Our feigning with the strange unlike, whence springs
• The difference that heavenly pity brings.
• For this, musician, in your girdle fixed
• Bear other perfumes. On your pale head wear
• A band entwining, set with fatal stones.
• Unreal, give back to us what once you gave:
• The imagination that we spurned and crave.