THE CONCERT
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o, I will go alone.I will come back when it’s over.Yes, of course I love you.No, it will not be long.Why may you not come with me?--You are too much my lover.You would put yourselfBetween me and song. If I go alone,Quiet and suavely clothed,My body will die in its chair,And over my head a flame,A mind that is twice my own,Will mark with icy mirthThe wise advance and retreatOf armies without a country,Storming a nameless gate,Hurling terrible javelins downFrom the shouting walls of a singing townWhere no women wait! Armies clean of love and hate,Marching lines of pitiless soundClimbing hills to the sun and hurlingGolden spears to the ground! Up the lines a silver runnerBearing a banner whereon is scoredThe milk and steel of a bloodless woundHealed at length by the sword! You and I have nothing to do with music.We may not make of music a filigree frame,Within which you and I,Tenderly glad we came,Sit smiling, hand in hand. Come now, be content.I will come back to you, I swear I will;And you will know me still.I shall be only a little tallerThan when I went.
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