Mozart and Salieri

Salieri encountered Mozart;

Took him friendly by the arm,

And smiled a thin-lipped ambiguous smile.

This was Italian charm.

Mozart observed the smile of Salieri

But was not enough observant,

(For the Angel of Death had called already

In the guise of an upper servant).

‘Maestro,’ said Salieri. ‘Dear Maestro,

It is happy that we met.’

(‘We’ll end this sharp boy's tricks,’ he thought

‘He’ll not get by – not yet!’)

‘And as for that post of kapellmeister

We’ll do what we can do.’

But something black within him whispered:

‘He is greater, is greater than you.

‘He is great enough to oust you, one day,

And take your place at Court.’

(‘Not if Salieri is Salieri,’

Salieri thought.)

‘It is happy that we met,’ said Salieri

‘I wish I could ask you to dine –

But I have, alas, a pressing engagement.

You will stay for a glass of wine?’

No one carried Mozart to nobody's grave

And the skies were glazed and dim

With a spatter of out-of-season rain

(Or the tears of the Seraphim).

Then two stern angels stood by that grave

Saying: ‘Infidel, Freemason,

We are taking your soul where it willed to be judged

At the throne of Ultimate Reason.’

But the Queen of the Night in coloratura

Horrors trilled at the sun,

For she looked at the soul of Wolfgang Amadeus

And she knew she had not won.

They lifted that soul where the great musicians

In contrapuntal fires

Through unlimited heavens of order and energy

Augment the supernal choirs.

And the spirit of Johann Sebastian, harrowed

With abstract darts of love,

Escorted the terrible child Mozart

Through courteous mansions above.

And hundred-fisted Handel erected

Great baroque arches of song

As the Cherubim and the Seraphim

Bandied Mozart along.

But Mozart looked back again in compassion

Below the vault of the stars

To where the body of Beethoven battered

Its soul on the prison bars.