Poem in DP inspired by Abt or Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler (1749–1814), organist and composer, perhaps written in 1863: see L 4.184–5. RB uses music here ‘as a symbol for the ideal forms that are perceived by feeling and fancy but cannot be fully expressed in the world of sense’ (Clarke [2001], p. 486). Vogler reached such heights, built such palaces, as he improvised on the orchestrion (the portable organ he invented), that ‘earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far’ (33). Whereas the power of painting and poetry is explicable, obedient to laws, music partakes of God’s ineffable creative force, so that three sounds produce not simply a fourth ‘but a star’ (45–56). The improvisation and the exaltation come to an end, but nothing good can be lost and God remains the same; ‘the broken arcs’ are for earth, ‘a ‘perfect round’ for heaven (72). The poem attempts in ‘six-beat, frequently dactylic verse’ (C&M 794) to realise Vogler’s musical experience, but shares, implicitly, its earthly imperfection—remaining, inevitably, words rather than music. ‘Abt Vogler extemporizing in words becomes the silent auditor of his own musical improvisation, verbally performing the music of another that he cannot quite understand’ (Helsinger [2022], pp. 80–1).