@3Earth Voice@1 Is she thoughtless of life, a lover of imminent death, Nun Snow touching her strings of white beads? Is it her unseen hands which urge the beads to tremble? Does Nun Snow, aware of the death she must die alone, away from the nuns of the green beads, of the ochre and brown, of the purple and black -- does she improvise along those soundless strings in the worldly hope that the answering, friendly tune, the faithful, folk-like miracle, will shine in a moment or two? @3Moon Voice@1 Or peradventure, are the beads merely wayward, on an evening so soft, and One Wind is so gentle a mesmerist as he draws them and her with his hand? @3Earth Voice@1 Was it Full Moon, who contrives tales of this order, and himself loves the heroine, Nun Snow -- @3Wind Voice@1 Do you see his beads courting hers? lascivious monk! -- @3Earth Voice@1 Was it Full Moon, slyly innocent of guile, propounder of sorrowless whimseys, who breathed that suspicion? Is it One Wind, the wily, scholarly pedant -- is it he who retorts -- @3Wind Voice@1 Like olden allegros in olden sonatas, all tales have two themes, @3she is beautiful he is beautiful@1, with the traditional movement, @3their beads court each other@1, revealing a cadence as fatally true as the sum which follows a one-plus-one -- so, why inquire further? Nay, inquire further, deduce it your fashion! Nun Snow, as you say, touches her strings of white beads, Full Moon, let you add, his lute of yellow strings; and, Our Night is square, nay, Our Night is round, nay, Our Night is a blue balcony -- and therewith close your inquisition! @3Earth Voice@1 Who urged the beads to tremble? They're still now! Fallen, or cast over me! Nun, Moon and Wind are gone! Are they betraying her? -- @3Moon Voice@1 Ask Our Night -- @3Earth Voice@1 Did the miracle appear? -- @3Moon Voice@1 Ask Our Night, merely a child on a balcony, letting down her hair and black beads, a glissando -- ask her what she means, dropping the curtain so soon! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHAMBER MUSIC: 19 by JAMES JOYCE THE BETTER PART by MATTHEW ARNOLD CHRISMUS ON THE PLANTATION by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A HOLIDAY by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE THE JESTER'S SERMON by GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY THE EPIPHANY by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |