Epigraph
Marvelous tunes you rang
From passion, and death, and birth,
You who had laughed and wept
On the warm, brown lap of the earth.
Now in your untried hands
An instrument, terrible, new,
Is thrust by a master who frowns,
Demanding strange songs of you.
God of the White and Black,
Grant us great hearts on the way
That we may understand
Until you have learned to play.