Friday, May 3, 2024

How Then...


 
Rodney Collin


How then shall each member learn to take part in harmony?
First, let each note sound clear and full. 
Pure in its tone, 
nor sharp nor flat from imitation, 
pretence or doubt. 
Let each type be himself, know his own nature, 
ring to the vibration God has given him. 
Let jovial heal, martial be brave, venusian loving; 
let moon be secret, mercury serviceable, saturn most deeply wise.
Let each craft fulfil itself — 
artist imagine, scientist deduce, leader bear all. 
Let each race refind its secrets, 
each creed its hidden mystery — 
Christian find Christ, Moslem Mahomet, 
Buddhist Gautama the Prince.
This is the first rule of harmony.
Second, let each note — 
remembering itself — listen for the chord. 
Hear its own sound, 
ringing with other sound struck simultaneously. 
Let Do hear itself sound with Mi and Sol. 
Let Mars hear his note ringing with Jupiter and Moon. 
Let priest hear his note blend with astronomer's and king's. 
Till, waking from single notes to wealth of chords, 
each learn to recognise their infinite variety, 
taste chord from chord, 
know the nature of those in which he sounds and why.
This is the second rule of harmony.
Third, let each note accept the key to come, 
follow the new tonic now revealed to it. 
Let each type yield to him who unites them all: 
all craft to the greater truth: 
all nations to Higher School: 
all creeds to the Not Yet Born. 
Each served as tonic in its day and age: 
each piped the tune once for all humanity. 
Now fall to other yet equal place — 
sounding the same, enter a higher key.
This is the third rule of harmony.
And fourth? Faith is the fourth. 
If note have not faith in the music to be played, 
in Composer, Conductor and Holy Symphony, what use? 
Without faith, each note's a pointless tedium. 
With faith, each note shall know that it is not, 
has no existence hut in the infinite music which evokes it. 
And knowing this, knows all, 
to the ultimate inspira­tion of the work.
This is the fourth rule of harmony.
And all this together is the key of harmony.
All this is freedom from violence and from strife, 
escape from crucifixion, 
the integration of heaven and hell.
And by all this, harmonious babe shall grow: 
shall form and move: and — 
when the planets conjoin again — be born.
HARMONIOUS BABE must grow in harmony. 
Its very cells, its assem­ bling organs, 
bones and flesh sing in the womb of time. 
And each man, woman, craft and creed that aspires 
to the future and to God 
is such a cell, such organ or such bone.
~Rodney Collin, The Herald of Harmony








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