From “Stradivarius”, George Eliot (1908):

” ‘Twere purgatory here to make them ill;

And for my fame – when any master holds

‘Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,

He will be glad that Stradivari lived,

The masters only know whose work is good:

They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill

I give them instruments to play upon,

God choosing me to help Him.”

 

Stradivarius hadn’t meant to be aware of us

Listeners hidden in the violin’s future. Instead

He knew the sound he wanted to come out,

Soul of the human voice, the deepest tone

Able to fly up to the ecstatic cry of angels

And fall far lower to the dull moan of devils,

Encompassing in passing we in purgatory,

Caught just lower than the Earth, who listen

To the furniture being moved above us, chairs

Pushed back in anger, fists thudding into bodies,

Shrieks of feet on floors, tremblings and stampings

Of the tumultuous world we’ve left for another.

 

Some say the wood density mattered most,

Maple from northern Croatia, found along

Borax bogs, then stored overlong in humid Venice,

Decomposing like us, waiting for a second forming;

Or the length and width of the various pieces fit

Together meticulously and overlaid with fruit gum

Mixed with quartz from the mountains, finish

To keep the worms long away from our wounds;

Or it could be workmanship prodded by the devil.

 

So now we strive to be Stradivarius, in the wail

Issuing from our luthier tongue, its sense,

Often brittle, because not naturally seasoned,

But strident, frenetic, as we cry up the groans

We feel rise from the damned ones below

Stumbling through the dark, their murmuring,

To those shuffling their feet above us, not hearing.