Symphonie Fantastique

A young musician of extraordinary sensibility and abundant imagination, in the depths of despair because of hopeless love, has poisoned himself with opium. The drug is too feeble to kill him but plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by weird visions. His sensations, emotions, and memories, as they pass through his affected mind, are transformed into musical images and ideas. The beloved one herself becomes to him a melody, a recurrent theme which haunts him continually.

—Hector Berlioz, 1830

Sweet sweet dainty dreaming

Tones of tears

Come drift alonnng . . .

I . . .

I am Alone. I melt and run

Away from all that

I am here,

I feel here.

I am

One who cannot live;

For I see

(what?)

A face; a perfect blush.

I am tired; I am weak;
Flesh lives on
With . . .

Cherub dreams; idyllic peace;
A happy music flowing;
Glory! Glory! Glory! Life!

Burden of hope,

Wing of my skies,

Seraphic strings,

Playing the music of music of music of . . .

Siren of life,

Black liquid eyes,

Ever so real,

Never so never so never so painful as . . .

She
She is repose within

A passion

She
She sings in tones

Virgin pure

The colors

Of creation

The sacredness

Of sorrow

The prize

Of real completion

The rarest spring of feeling stirring

Joy!

Joy! Joy!

A love for what

Was hated

A peace in what

Was pain

A hope in that which was abandoned

Life!

What!-Life!

I feel myself now falling,

Cascading now I dive.

My colors flourish freely,

My flowers blooming like the eyes of . . .

Lost I was to sorrow,

Now lost to passion live.

So sweet tastes rushing water,

So delicate can be the fire

Bursts!

Of!-Love!

Rain

Falls in fury-freedom

Fire

Is for celebration,

Time

Falls away when sounds the

Cry

Over all creation

Rainbow dove,

Promise of

Something more than earthly earthly

Love!

Drink the wine of music.

Free,

Free to sound aloud the

Voice,

Voice of glory, wonder

We,

We are blue jays bringing

Dawn,

With a song of thunder

Thunder of

Life in love;

At last the ring of ring of ring . . .

Eter! -

ni! - ty!

She is,

She is the glimmer in each living eye.

She is,

She is the hope of this stone-hearted dead.

The harmony of sightly powers,

In this, her store of springtime flowers,

Golden bold and blooming bright,

Divine; surpassing sacred light;

Subli! -

mi! - ty!

Rising higher!

In fire!

The skies

Swirl with night.

Thousands grasp hands
In free bands,

And sing,

Voices light.

We are falling,
Enthralling
Ourselves,
Holy calling;

Our eyes burn
With resin
Of visions

And light;

A flailing

Ec!-sta!

-sy!

Becoming,
Now becoming
Slower, numbing
Deep tone drumming:

God.
God is the prize of

All . . .

With . . .

Peace.

[1995]