University of Virginia Library

THE HOME OF SONG.

POET:
Where is the Home of Song?
Tell me, O tuneful soul!
Where do the harmonies royally throng?
Where do the symphonies, swooning along,
Rivers of music roll?

MINNIE-SINGER:
Where the wide hill-sides glow,
Purple with clustering vine;
Where the blue myriads of violets grow—
Rivulets, rippling in rythmical flow,
Run to their father Rhine.

TROUBADOUR:
Where the sweet austrial skies
Shimmer in golden rays;
Where the low lakelet alluringly lies,
Wooing the wantoning wind to arise,
Liquid with love-lorn lays.

SKALD:
Where the wild bards of yore
(Crown'd with the Boreal Fires)
Chanted their songs to the resonant shore—
Billows of music, in runical roar,
Surging from stormy lyres.

POET:
Not with the skies alone—
Not with the ocean's roll—
Not with the rivers, in musical moan,
Not with the zephyrs, in tremulant tone,
Dwelleth the songful soul.

CHORUS:
There is but one dear Home—
Thence we may ne'er depart;
There do the harmonies royally come—
There are the melodies nevermore dumb!—
Hush!—'tis the Human Heart!