Sounds and Sweet Airs :: :: University of Virginia Library

A Chest of Viols

Inscribed to Arnold Dolmetsch.

Old music, and old instruments—and O
The harmony they make,
As touched by Music's magian wand, the bow,
One after one they wake,
Voice after voice, as sister answers brother,
Answering each other.
Sedately as the Muses on their lawn,
Under the pines of Helicon!

A Chest of Viols, every one the dream
Of some old craftsman's heart;

And each a well-trimmed argosy doth seem,
Planned by his careful art
Her burden rich to bear of mellow sound
From the profound
Valleys of that lone land where Music dwells
Beside delight's most hidden wells.

Hush! for her breast athrill, Treble proposes
The theme, so sweet, so rare,
It seems an odour breathed from Herrick's roses;
Then, as in love's despair,
Grave Tenor in his amber voice replies,
With tenderer sighs
Alto complains, in resonant barytone,
Viol'-da-Gamba mocks her moan.

Together now, now one the other leads,
Like nightingales in May;

Their conversation no harsh discord breeds,
So sweet the words they say,
And, though all speak together, every word
Is richly heard;
Naught rude, obscure, blatant, or out of joint,
Marring the courtly counterpoint.

Singing or silent, each knows well his place
And speaks in his own fashion,
None lords it o'er his fellows, but with grace
Discourses of his passion;
Each in melodious descant on the air,
Forgets his care.
They play like swallows courting on the wing,
Pursuing, meeting, sundering.

O rare old music, brave old instruments,
And quaint Old Master's writing,

Whose art in that severe old style invents
New methods of delighting!
Here harmony waits on fair melody
Most sisterly,
And nobler, kindlier, lovelier music, none
Hath ripened under English sun.

'Tis gentle, sane, heart-easing ravishment,
Brooding on strains like this,
To sit ensphered in a divine content,
As one, grown young in bliss,
Upon a bank tree-shadowed, by a stream
Will dream and dream,
Letting thought's flock stray with each piping mood,
Cloistered in sylvan solitude.

On First Hearing Handel's Messiah.

Inscribed to the Memory of Sir Robert P. Stuart, Mus. Doc.

What grace had come to me? I was to hear
The first great music that I ever heard;
The name of Handel woke my inward ear
With summoning thunders. Music!—that siren word
Called me, as the far voice of the unknown sea
The new-fledged sea-bird; shone like the mystic star
That once to Bethlehem led young Balthazar;
My eager heart beat with adventurous glee,
Expecting some new glorious avatar.

And when from noisy traffic of the street
Into the grey cathedral vast and dim,
Leaving life's festering ways, I turned my feet,
I felt the wings of silent seraphim
O'ershadow me as I entered there, and stood
Mid the hushed crowd as for a miracle
Waiting. Phantoms they seemed, myself as well,
When in that silence, thronged like solitude
With unseen powers, awe on my spirit fell.

Then gloriously, as through night's gloom profound
Soar the light-shedding plumes of day new-born,
Silence was quickened with majestic sound;
The organ, heralding redemption's morn,
Prophesied in that divine primæval tongue

Men caught from angels, ere on Shinar's plain
Confusion fell on Babel, and now again
Heard, as though Morning Stars o'er earth made young
Breathed from sweet flutes a glad prelusive strain.

And then a voice I heard, falling like dew
Of consolation gently out of heaven,
Say: “Comfort ye my people!” and renew
Promise of blessing and peace, with sin forgiven.
It ceased. Once more the billowing organ pealed;
Like angels hovering o'er a sunlit sea
Voices that shone proclaimed exultingly:
“The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed!”
I was exalted in that ecstasy.

I stood in heaven. Like an illumined scroll
Wherein each word upsoared a singing flame,
I saw the Epic of the World unroll;
Old Scriptures holy with the anointed Name
Burst into song. As grey o'erwintered trees,
Their buds within them dumb, sleep till the Spring
Calls, and each leaf awakes, a living thing,
Even so these words, embalming mysteries,
Awoke from sleep new born, to shine and sing.

Like mounting larks, glad minstrels of the morn,
The Sons of Joy leaped from earth's kindling sod,
Singing: “For unto us a Child is born,
Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God,
The Prince of Peace!” In golden thunders rang

The rapturous fugue to heaven, from deep to deep
Echoing those mighty words, that seemed to sweep
Through holier heights the seraphs as they sang,
Till peace hushed the sick world like healing sleep.

The peace of God; for in man's desolate soul
God came to dwell. Peace like a canopy
Folded the shepherds when divinely stole
Through the still night the Pastoral Symphony,
And heavenly children sang the Saviour's birth.
Then suddenly flaming wings throbbed in the air
Like summer lightning: all heaven's host was there:

“Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth,
Good will toward men!” So sang those heralds fair.

O Son of Man, sad earth's rejected King,
Light of the World, still blindly seeking light,
Who first made holiness a human thing,
Did man but dream thy coming? Shall endless night
Mock us with hope? Did he who touched with fire
Isaiah's lips move in these blinder days
This glorious Bard vainly to hymn thy praise?
Or did the Spirit of Truth indeed inspire
This Prophet, walking in God's ancient ways?

Answering from heaven, the music seemed to fall
In benediction on all things opprest,
Proclaiming still that Shepherd come to call
His wandering sheep, and give the weary rest;
Till, with: “His yoke is easy,” tranquilly
The Book of Peace closed, and I heard no more
The tasks of Time claimed me. Yet still I bore
Peace in my soul, as from a sanctuary
The blessed wine a cup ne'er filled before.

As though a prophet's vision I had seen
I went my way. The gracious tenderness
Of that great music from the realm serene
Where dwell the mightiest spirits had come to bless

My spirit for ever with a sane delight.
I had heard the angels sing; and from that hour
Their songs awake at Handel's word of power,
Like ocean's voice for majesty and might,
In beauty perfect as a lily's flower.

A Song of Cesti.

Inscribed to Florence Campbell Perugini.

This claims rare singing—is a song indeed,
Born when love-making was a gentle art
To win a lady's heart
With delicate music, ever beauty's meed
When love and song lived not apart,
And the sad lover eased his pain
Pleading for grace in such a deftly-fashioned strain.

How lovingly this old Venetian air
Caresses the quaint words, how plaintively
The minors of the key

Sigh with the singer, as in lone despair
He sends on courteous embassy
The winds his Lady's cheek to kiss,
And prays the spirits of love to bring her dreams of bliss!

Love in your Venice was a grave romance,
Cesti, when you made music, and your song
Bears the skilled voice along,
As o'er the rippling waters once perchance
His gondola, gliding among
Dim palaces, a lover true,
Your theme taught with fine craft his mistress how to woo.

O Padre, did you dream some damsel fair
Would from her balcony, as Juliet might,

Lean into the rich night,
A flame of red pomegranate in her hair,
Her lover's homage to requite
With guerdon of a glance, a flower,
Your song might win for him in love's enchanted hour?

I know not; but your stately serenade
Sighs with faint memories of the life men led
In those old days long fled,
When music was in spring time, undecayed
Your palaces, ghosts of the dead
Inhabit now, when time and change
Sweep the old world away, and even our thoughts grow strange.

Would I might pledge you once in golden wine
Of Cyprus, while your music charmed the moon,

And thank you for that boon
In your own tongue, praise you in rhythm divine
Of stanzas perfect as your tune!
But ah! you daunt me with the spell
Breathed by delightful things done exquisitely well.

The Harpsichord.

Inscribed to Violet Gordon Woodhouse.

This music-room itself is harmony,
Designed when still the clear-eyed Graces came
To watch the Master-Builder, dexterously
Prompting his hand harmonious lines to frame;
And all it holds is beautiful, and sings
In mellow modulations from the key:
You feel the quiet presence of old things
That charm, yet make no claim.

It is a pleasant room, welcoming you
With stately air of courtesy antique,
Yet with a touch of homelier kindness too
Seeming of our less formal age to speak;

A room where you may sit in cosy nooks,
Sweet with well-tended flowers, and turn a few
Melodious pages of old music-books,
From shelves not far to seek.

There stands the cherished Harpsichord—the shrine
Wherein some frail ghost of old music dwells,
Brooding in trance over its youth divine,
Like ocean's voice asleep in caverned shells;
That woodwork breathes the balm of old repose,
The wearied eye rests in each gracious line:
It seems to whisper memories of old Beaux
Long vanished, and their Belles.

Perhaps young Purcell made the strings complain
With Dido's passion, when, as o'er strange seas

Voyaging, he won for England glorious gain
From lands yet virgin; or on those mute keys
May Arne have led the courtly minuet,
When by soft lanterns' light the sighing Swain
And cruel Nymph, Strephon and Chloe, met
Under the Vauxhall trees.

Perhaps—? But here the Lady of the Place,
The fair enchantress of this Home of Dreams,
Comes with all music's mystery in her face,
And visionary light around her gleams
From those unhurrying days when Music still
Tript her blithe measures with a high-born grace,
And voice and instrument with daintiest skill
Carolled her tuneful themes.

Now Silence, bend thy ever-listening ear,
For Music wakes, and sighs prelusively;

All things that love sweet sounds, wake when they hear
Prediction of their solace in her sigh.
The jacks, obedient to their Lady's hand,
Leap at her summons; mightiest spirits draw near—
Listening the dead Old Masters round her stand,
A ghostly company.

Whom will she choose? Stern Bach smiles gravely now,
Flattered to find precedence in her choice,
It smooths the austerest wrinkles on his brow
To hear his own renown-embalmèd voice
Upsoar like dawn's first lark, yet with the wings
Of the untiring eagle. Praised be thou,
Great Master, who at music's deepest springs
Mad'st men drink and rejoice!

O passionate rigour, clear intricacy
Of melodies weaving delight a bower,
Victorious tactic of a branching tree
Seeking the sun, with beauty for its dower!
A primrose on a rock, tenderness here
Smiles in the lap of grim austerity.
The seed of all we welcome year by year
Slept in this perfect flower.

The strenuous incantation soars away
Into dumb space; the ardent South succeeds
The earnest North. Scarlatti's breezy sway
Wakens the nymph's voice in the sighing reeds;
The busy strings buzz like Hyblæan bees,
Sicilian shepherds, making holiday,
Pipe while their flocks rest by great olive-trees,
Or crop the thymy meads.

Now golden Summer follows herald Spring,
And what rich heart throbs in each trembling wire?
What nightingale doth so divinely sing,
What mystic rose this passion could inspire?
It is the love-led prince who woke from sleep
Beauty, Mozart, whom Death struck ere her king
Music had crowned him, leaving her to weep
Her ne'er appeased desire.

Here to himself he sings—a child who roves
Rejoicing in the meadows of sweet sound,
With amorous litanies for all he loves,
When life's young buds are bursting all around;
We hear, and walk with him in glad surprise,
Each common flower mysterious rapture moves,
Fresh with the dews of that lost Paradise,
Childhood's enchanted ground.

The Harpsichord breathes like a wilding rose,
Enamoured of her tenant bird, who stays
But while he sings, then from her branches goes;
And I, like her, desolate many days,
Must mourn the joy flown with those flying fingers,
When the lorn strings they left in sad repose;
Yet echoing still the truant music lingers
In memory's woodland ways.

Irish Melodies.

Inscribed to the Memory of Catherine Hayes.

A voice beside the dim enchanted river,
Out of the twilight, where the brooding trees
Hear Shannon's Druid waters chant for ever
Tales of dead Kings and Bards and Shanachies;
A girl's young voice out of the twilight, singing
Old songs beside the legendary stream;
A girl's clear voice, o'er the wan waters ringing,
Beats with its wild wings at the Gates of Dream.

The flagger-leaves whereon shy dew-drops glisten
Are swaying, swaying gently to the sound,

The meadow-sweet and spearmint, as they listen,
Breathe wistfully their wizard balm around;
And there, alone with her lone heart and heaven,
Thrushlike she sings, and lets her voice go free,
Her soul of all its hidden longing shriven
Soars on wild wings with her wild melody.

Sweet in its plaintive Irish modulations,
Her fresh young voice tuned to old sorrow seems,
The passionate cry of countless generations
Keenes in her breast as there she sings and dreams.
No more, sad voice; for now the dawn is breaking
Through the long night, through Ireland's night of tears,
New songs wake in the morn of her awaking
From the enchantment of nine hundred years.

Schubert's Trio in E♭ Major.

Ay, in the very Temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine.”
—Keats.

Inscribed to Mrs. Gordon Woodhouse, Mrs. Carpenter, and Señor Rubio.

I. A Prelude.

In what remotest glades of phantasy
Were these rich tones first heard? What sunburnt race,
Shepherds of some diviner Arcady,
Found for these measures a green dancing-place?
From what untrodden region of delight

Where Keats might muse, Giorgione lie at ease
Long visionary hours, his brush cast by,
Did Schubert, Music's loneliest eremite,
Bear in his heart melodious flowers like these
Unfading roses that superbly sigh?

O sounds that float like odours in the air
When flowers rejoice in sunshine and fresh dew!
Old Pan finds now more mystical and rare
Voices for his dumb passion than when he drew
Sighs from soft reeds. White naiads of the streams
Laugh in these rippling keys, and mourn anon;
The violin, a bird all air and fire,
Soars; the deep viol remembers earth's lost dreams:
The god's unslumbering woe breathes in each tone,
And wakes in every heart its own desire.

II. The Trio.

Here, to brisk pastoral measures moving now,
Through happy lawns isled in the greenwood shade,
Come, with fresh-gathered chaplets on each brow,
Many a brown shepherd, many a lovely maid;
Yet all around mysterious voices call,
Mysterious wings are hovering in the air,
Strange presences felt in the dryad's home;
For Life and Death meet at Love's festival;
Sorrow and Joy with mingled rites prepare
His woodland mysteries, as these dancers come.

But here the sun sheds golden afternoon
Through forest-places, haunts of innocent glee,

Therefore, with feet by that compelling tune
Inspired, dance on, glad lovers! What reck ye
Though Death and Sorrow, while Time's hour-glass runs,
Threaten like snakes among the whispering leaves?
Where Love walks robed and crowned, what should Youth fear?
Dance then, till graver thoughts wake at the sun's
Farewell, and the faint sigh pale twilight heaves
Lulls every flower, as the shy stars appear.

Now 'tis Love's hour; his spirit, the nightingale,
Immortal in this music, sings again
As in the old forest of that Venetian tale,
Where to the piping Shepherd's lonely strain
Love lent his voice, and with sad melody

Made weep the enamoured Princess. Now the moon
Of mystery gleams through dusk ambrosial trees,
And with her spell sets prisoned rapture free,
And every heart beats to the rapturous tune
Of Love's own bird, in secret esctasies.

Strange incantation! Answering that lone voice,
From earth to heaven tumultuous harmony
Soaring, awakes the demons who rejoice
In storm and tempest, and wild battle's glee.
The Arcadian gods leap from their forest lair
To the old unending fight, fought long ago,
To mournful chords, they march with slow stern tread;
The Nameless Ones, whose magic plagues the air,

Yield like rent clouds when the Moon bends her bow,
And Joy, still trembling, lifts his cowering head.

But what blithe notes are these? No mortal mirth
So finely blends with the vast sounds of night;
It is the happy spirits of the earth
Who hold mad revel here in Fate's despite,
The eager Fauns and gentle Dryads here
Are dancing recklessly in frolic mood,
Votaries of genial Pan, the Moon, and Love,
Whose mingled music charms Night's listening ear;
While the rapt bird sits dumb, then from yon wood
Repeats her lone cry to the stars above.

Nay, 'twas no timorous nightingale we heard:
When that bird sings the answering tempest sweeps
Over the earth intent upon some word
Heard in the storm, and sounding from the deeps.
Life's nightmare flies with all her spectral train,
The Fauns are dancing still; like warriors bold
The Shepherds march as from a glorious field,
Night in her majesty appears again;
The passion of the tale Music hath told
Ends now in triumph. Sorrow's heart is healed.

To Rossini.

The ghostly wind of Weber's northern pines,
With its luxurious dread ne'er haunted thee;
Maddening the heart like bright Circæan wines,
Thy siren songs float o'er the sunlit sea;
Thy faunlike childhood caught a pagan glee
From mellow clusters, bending trellised vines,
In some warm Umbrian vale where sunset shines
On vintage dance and jocund minstrelsy.
If life were all a bacchanal procession
Of sensuous joys, thou wert its great high priest,
Old Pan of music, who, half god, half beast,
On the shy nymph of tears mad'st bold aggression;
Yet in thy bowers we sit at endless feast,
And of thy sumptuous realm take rich possession.

Schumann's “Forest Scenes.”

“Forests and enchantments drear
Where more is meant than meets the ear.”

I. The Hunter's Quest.

Enter the haunted Forest! Here Music weaves
The web of life. Among the trembling leaves
A sense of things unseen, a spectral fear
Lurks for the venturous Hunter straying here,
Till the fantastic form of every tree
Looms like a threatening spectre, ominously.

Enter the lonely Forest! Music here
Lures with her hovering spells, till that grey fear

Grows a familiar presence, and enthralls
The Wanderer, like the ecstatic dread which falls
On one who, come to a witch's haunt by night,
Awaits the hour of some dark perilous rite.

Enter the gloomy Forest! Music here
Makes of each glimmering pool a magic mere
In an enchanter's land, where night and day
Mingle their powers, and every woodland way,
Whispering of mystery, tempts the Seeker's feet
To chase the thing he fears, yet longs, to meet.

Enter the dolorous Forest! Music here
With shuddering voice chants in the Venturer's ear
Of passion crowned with horror.—A dreary strain
Flits like a spectre through this glade of pain,
The ghastly discords of whose lingering moan
Crisp with a tragic awe life's undertone.

[_]

Poems II and III appear elsewhere in English Poetry.

Chopin's Nocturnes.

“Where music and moonlight and feeling are one.”

Inscribed to a Fair Sibyl.

I. His Instrument.

Music's coy maiden waited her musician,
Her heart the dungeon of her sweetest words,
Dumb as all hearts ere Love, the young magician,
Charms them to flame like flowers and sing like birds;
Till one fine Spirit at last wooed like a lover
The cold virginity of these white keys,
And bade these trembling strings discover
Their secret exquisite reveries.

II. Music and Moonlight.

Shut out the world! No sense of its mad care,
Its din and sordid strife mar night's rich gloom,
Or with a memory trouble the delicate air
Of this one room, your own—of this one room
Your heart has made its treasury of things rare.

There sigh your gathered roses, red and white,
And by yon casement, in one symphony
Of odours breathed on the warm air of night,
Verbena, and mignonette, and rosemary,
And myrtle prelude some delicious rite.

No need for candles when voluptuous June
Makes night one long twilight of stars and clouds,

And o'er your garden trees the royal moon
Tames with her splendour her bright courtier crowds,
And all things tremble as to a nocturne's tune.

Ah! give their passion utterance, key by key!
To your proud roses oft you have played alone;
To-night for no proud roses, but for me
You shall set music on her silver throne,
Though every rose should fade for jealousy.

They shall not fade; but from old Omar's tomb
Faintly their Persian sisters' breath divine
Shall, as you play, float to me through the gloom,
And East and West, as in one mystic wine,
Mingle their spirits in music and perfume.

III. The Nocturnes.

The music wakes and, like a potent rime,
Charms me away to a dim land that lies
Beyond the churlish insults of grey Time,
And in my ear slow rippling melodies
Whisper their legends of that golden clime.

There Love's glad child, Romance, pines not away,
A frail flower withering in the winds of morn,
And many a dream entombed in earth's cold clay
In that enchanted land awakes re-born.
The hours are kind and Beauty grows not grey.

There the wild dæmons that in us rave and sigh—
Pride, Love, Grief, Joy, Despair, and Melancholy,
Robed for their parts in Life's high tragedy,
Like stately knights and damsels moving slowly
To music, pass in sumptuous pageant by.

Now, in a land of lakes or broad lagunes,
By glimmering waters lovers meet and part
In moonlit groves, or float where sunset swoons
O'er cities like some Venice of the heart,
Where all the air is full of languorous tunes.

And now, perchance, a daintier theme suggests
An idyll where, with a sad smile, Watteau,
'Mong gallants trim and ladies with white breasts,

Paints Love, in some fantastic Fontainebleau,
Bandying with Pleasure melancholy jests.

Anon deep luxury of sorrow—chords
Of gloom, grave marches that in dirges die!
To what stern gods, passion's calm overlords,
What magian race chants a sad litany?
What serene ecstasy that plaint rewards?

No more! Cease now, ere the moon sink away
Beyond those elms, ere sadness 'gin to creep
About the world's heart as the east grows grey,
Troubling the vast solemnity of sleep,
And we must face the light of common day.

To Elodie.

Singing an old English Air.

O sing again, and let the delicate lute
Murmur low chords responsively,
Now hovering round the melody, now mute
For very sympathy!
Sing, as your spirit sings, angelically,
And I shall hear that spirit who sings for ever
In Dreamland's pastoral Age of Gold;
Like Sidney's shepherd in the Arcadian valley
Piping by the clear brooks, as he would never
Cease, or grow old!

O voice, of tone so pure, so rare, so sweet,
Tender as moonlight, fresh as dew;

O hovering lute, shy lover at watch to greet
The voice with homage true;
O song, clear draft from the old melodious river
Of melody—bring back those golden hours
When music was an art indeed;
When English homes had passionate hearts to give her,
And men in love with life sowed songs like flowers
O'er life's green mead!

Sing then, sweet Singer of this later time,
Whose name remembers melody!
Old Ben himself might weep to hear his rime
Carest so daintily:
Weep, not as eyes weep at a tale of sorrow,
But as the heart weeps tears of ecstasy

When something beautiful and rare
Surprises with delight. O, could I borrow
A wreath from him to crown you, it should be
Primroses fair!

The Wounded Tristram.

Inscribed to the Memory of Alvary.

Hushed is the House; like listening phantoms
Charmed by that lyre forlorn, whose wild sorrow
Stilled the waves of the River of Wailing,
Dumb we dream, each lone by his neighbour,
A thrilling presence, remote, a spirit.

Only music lives: the great music
Throbs like the heart of a passion immortal,
With a pulse of flame, with a sound overwhelming
Sense and soul, as when ocean thunders
Notes of doom through the shrieking forest.

Why should one breathe or move, sigh or whisper,
When in the shuddering strings, the moaning,
Murmuring wood, in the thunders indignant
Pealed from the blaring brass, the strong music
Agonizes, still agonizes?

There on his couch lies the wounded Tristram;
Wearier that couch than the cross of a Saviour!
Comes no sail to the straining eyeballs,
Comes no kiss to the lips, no easing
To the limbs, tossing vainly, vainly!

Well, thou wounded Tristram, I know thee:
Thou art I, thy passion my passion!
On that couch with thee lies my body,
Hurt with a magic wound; for its birthright
Dealt with life by the hand that made me.

There, in the shuddering strings, the moaning,
Murmuring wood, in the thunders indignant
Pealed from the tragic brass, moans my spirit,
Desolate, weary, love-lorn, God-abandoned,
Agonizing, still agonizing.

Ah! for thee, o'er the seas that sunder,
Comes at last the embrace, the moment;
But for me comes no sail, no succour,
No Isolt, with her kiss to heal me,
Even too late, o'er the seas that sunder.

A Pastoral Pipe.

Inscribed to the Unknown Player.

Dumb tides have borne me to the utmost bound
Of life's dark ocean, sleep; where on the shore
The drowsy billows break with wildering sound,
And cast me, waiflike, on this world once more.
I wake in Rome, and hear—what do I hear?
What voice? What herald of dawn, summoning me
To watch the sun o'er cold Clitumnus rise?
What bird, of morn's serene sad ecstacy
Piping divinely from his covert near,
Hails the rathe pageant of the kindling skies?

I reel, dazed, from oblivion's ebbing surge,
And shake the sluggard languor from each sense;
Yet still that music sounds, as I emerge
From night's enchantment, clearer, more intense.
It is the goatherd's pipe: against a plane
Faunlike he leans and plays, his resting goats
For only audience; tempering to his mood
Tunes that are memories, in whose plaintive notes
Arcadian Pan breathes, and the lingering strain
Of pastoral flutes in the old nymph-haunted wood.

Campagna's noons have bronzed his lonely face,
Forgotten gods are templed in his breast,

The joys and sorrows of an ancient race
Are musical in him. But now, possest
With mænad's glee, his pipe to the young day
Flings a wild rustic dance, in challenge bright
Reiterated, varied with bold skill,
As he would summon to the Autumnal rite
The old vintage revellers—phantoms, footing gay
Their Bacchic measure on a vine-clad hill.

O sweet miraculous grace of homely things
To stir the pulses of a joy so deep!
This peasant's pipe sounds, and life's hidden springs
Leap up and sing in me. I sailed in sleep
Toward a strange land of legend, yet unknown.
Rome was a name; but I awake made free
Of all her sibylline realm—she bids me hail.

Priestess of all dead gods, I come to thee,
Thy child, whom thou dost now claim for thine own,
To worship them, ghosts of thy kingdom pale!

Tchaikovsky's “Symphonie Pathétique:”

Inscribed to Henry J. Wood.

The Spirit of our dead Century, sick of dreams,
Of hopes forlorn, vain victories, weariness,
Sings, wails, defies life's horror here, it seems,
As its dead moods like spectres round it press.

Like a lost child through night's cold gloom it cries,
A Titan child that weeps, and weeping sings,
Weaving from desolate woe sad lullabies
To its wild fear of grim night-wandering things.

Master of Sorrow and the bleeding Heart
Where Love, the Phœnix, kindling his own pyre,
That he may rise reborn and soaring start
On his new voyage, dies in vain desire!

Breathes not thy orchestra some ominous breath
Of sandal-wood, sweet gums, or spices rare,
Wherein the Arabian Bird, waiting for death,
Embalms his lonely triumph, ere Death be there?

Through these brief-gleaming changes of sad sound
Dark visions rise. Ah! Titan child, we know
That world where strayed thy feet: we too have found
Those happy woods, those flowers—how long ago!

We know those green glades where the sun of June
Shone through the whispering leaves, the reveries
Of youth, the splendour of Love's mystic moon,
Life's young desires that seemed her prophecies.

We know how she sang like a sorceress
Under the hovering threat of austere heaven;
We know the secrets of that wilderness
Where we blasphemed, bearing sins unforgiven.

We too have seen that sunset red as blood,
Felt that pale twilight fall with poisonous dew,
Dwelt with despair, outlawed from all things good,
Crazed by the mockery of his phantom crew;

Have faced the swoop of that fierce night of storm,
The scornful thunders, and the scourging hail,
When God's frown changed the world, and things deform
Rode on the winds, grey demons of the gale.

We too have marched, like thee, to that stern tune,
Undaunted, though we heard remorselessly,
Relentlessly, while dark were sun and moon,
Those drums marking the tread of Destiny.

Sad Titan, what Caucasian summit bleak
Waits each rash bringer of new fire to men?
Lone Phœnix, on what ne'er-ascended peak,
From what red pyre shalt thou be born again?

None answers. Only darkness gathers round,
The pulse of music falters. Dumbly there
Death beckons. Patiently the soul of sound
Sinks beyond passion, dies beyond despair.

Dvořák's “Dumky” Trio.

Inscribed to Sir C. Hubert H. Parry, Mus. Doc.

What have your moods to say to me,
Coy melodies of many a mood,
Changing measure, changing key,
Brief lilts of music that elude
Capture, so wilfully?

Old joys and sorrows living on
In memories of the peasant's heart
Into these wild strains have gone;
And like the birds, with natural art,
Woodcutters in forests old,

Shepherd lads on lonely hills,
And maids amilking have consoled
With such grave notes and plaintive trills
Their homely sorrows, else untold.

How gaunt and strange, grotesque, yet beautiful,
These folk-tunes of a brooding race,
Wild flowers of fancy one might cull
From dwellers in some lone untravelled place,
Where the old world lives through long slowmoving days,
Keeping its old-world ways,
These themes a Craftsman rude has bound
In one fantastic rhapsody of sound!

O tell me what forgotten tale,
What village tale of tragic sorrow,
Breathes in the strings' reiterated wail,

Dying slow in long-drawn sighs,
As the wind's gusty lamentation dies—
Outwearied with lone sorrow dies!

Tell me why, skipping suddenly in,
With change abrupt, that freaksome strain,
With its mirth remote and thin
Has now possest the violin?
The notes flit lightly by, as though
Airy elves untouched by pain,
Heartless things that ne'er could know
Mortal joy or mortal woe,
Bent upon their impish pleasure,
Came tripping here their alien measure:
And then that dolorous wail is heard again.

Is it a dirge some poor soul sings,
Left by a grave alone,

While in a funeral march, with muted strings
Viol and violin moan?
Scarce has that requiem sobbed out its last sigh
Ere village youths and maids come dancing by,
Now fast, now slow, pausing, delaying
At their will, like folk amaying,
Until, as fast and faster feet are flying,
The insistent march comes back, more dolorously sighing;
And whirled along as in a storm
The themes, like birds with songs changing their form
To suit the season's weather,
Now clamour all together,
Now cry alternately alone,
As joy and grief make antiphone.

And still, as fleeting visions pass
Within a wizard's glass,
Ever the fitful music sweeps
From grave to gay, from gay to grave,
Now tenderly complains, now seems to rave
In reckless joy, and now to sound the deeps
Of love's voluptuous melancholy;
And, as the lover plays with his own folly,
Toys with each tune, till grief smiles and joy weeps;
Then, like a wild thing roused from brief repose,
It leaps to a sudden close.
And all the Craftsman's uncouth art has bound
In one fantastic rhapsody of many-coloured sound.

Beethoven's “Sonata Appassionata.”

Inscribed to the Memory of Anton Rubinstein.

I.

Through night's vast voiceless gloom a Sibyl cries
To man's heart some apocalyptic word,
Which falters on her tongue; then wailing flies
Like an affrighted bird.

Again she vainly strives; then desolate
With faltering voice flies wailing through the gloom,
While from the abyss of night reverberate
Menacing notes of doom.

Yet back she comes once more; but not alone,
For from the secret mountain solitude
Where thought's rebellious thunders have their home
She calls the Titan brood.

From earth to heaven they shout her prophecy,
While the fates laugh. Then all things listen mute:
With eager iterance flutter to the sky
Notes from a preluding flute.

Then from the awakened heart, on valorous wing,
A theme ardent as youth leaps joyously;
But in bold flight falls, as a wounded thing
Into a raging sea.

A Swan, a Royal Bark, it fights the waves
Of sudden storm. Wild voices throng the gale,
As in the rent clouds, while the vexed sea raves,
Contending spirits wail.

Voices of comfort, menace, or despair,
Answering the baffled theme, the Sibyl's cry,
Make, as they rise from ocean, earth, and air,
Tempestuous harmony.

O Swan! O Sibyl! with what remorseless foes,
Fate and Life's mocking winds, do ye contend,
And the unfathomed sea whose waves are woes,
With what far God for friend?

Fiercer the fight grows, louder shrieks the blast,
Long gusts of tempest, buffeting the Bark,

Drown the sad Sibyl's cry, and Hope aghast
Waits for the end. But hark!

Unvanquished still that jubilant song is heard,
Triumphing o'er the furious waves—once more
Fitfully sounds the Sibyl's cryptic word,
Clear through the tempest's roar.

In vain! The Swan-song strives with wearier note,
The unwearied waves bay like the hounds of doom,
The staggering Ship, o'erwhelmed, scarce keeps afloat,
Foundering in the gloom.

The old fight is fought, the tragic hour is past,
Sung is the saga of him who fate defies,

Magnificently strives, and foiled at last,
Magnificently dies.

O dauntless theme, O Swan, O Royal Ship,
O passion of our hearts! what comes to thee
In that last agony in the tempest's grip—
Defeat, or victory?

II.

Three chords, and all the world is listening,
Three chords, the hoary prophets of the key,
Their stern and solemn chant begin to sing,
Our hearts march to its tune, defying destiny.

Is it a dirge for some young hero dead,
Or a great hymn, hailing a god reborn
In a vexed age with doubts disquieted,
The dawn-song of a faith's new resurrection morn?

With the firm tread of a scarred veteran host
Retired from a disastrous field, but soon
Rallying to regain the vantage lost,
It marches calmly on—all hearts march to its tune.

It is the martyr's hymn of seers who lead
The world's Hope Forlorn: the resolute ecstasy
Of men who trust the faith for which they bleed
Burns in it as it breathes grave challenge to the sky.

With slow majestic pace, as when the sun,
Gone down in tempest, through the eastern gate
Unhurrying, tarrying not, his way has won,
And fills all heaven with light, it marches calm as fate.

Then faster throbs the music's pulse; the tramp
Of the thin squadron falls with eagerer beat
As though, descried afar, the hostile camp
With a quick thought of onset fired the marching feet.

And now young spirits of joy ensky the theme
In jubilant divisions as they sing,
Their pinions flaming in the dawn's first gleam:
News of a hope new-born to earth from heaven they bring.

Music, the day's bright voice, makes earth and air
Palpitate in the divine invincible glee
Of the glad choir's evangel, and despair
Crouches, a spectre dumb in that vast symphony,

And ever more intense the sun's delight
Flames in the rapture of each golden tone,
Till the blithe spirits vanish in lingering flight,
And the stern martyr's hymn is heard on earth alone.

A judgment trumpet for the souls of men
It seems, as now the solemn chords outring,
Ere seeking a full close, it sinks: and then
Discords, like sudden clash of swords encountering!

III.

And now, without a pause, inevitably
We are swept onward, breathless, borne afar
By the swift-rushing steeds of phantasy
To what strange land, vexed by what ghostly war?

New tempest swoops over the desolate waste,
Blurred by the twilight, trampled by the storm;
Gust follows gust with fierce relentless haste,
And all familiar things have changed their form.

Like a lithe wrestler, on the groaning earth
The insistent gale hurls all his tyrannous weight,
The new-born stars are smothered in their birth,
The wind's will overbears our souls like fate.

And through the gloom a voice comes fitfully,
In tones of anguish the rude gusts o'ercrow,
As of one worn with long calamity,
Pursued by some inexorable woe.

A hero's heart might break in that lone cry,
Too weak to rally his lost comrades—dead,

Or scattered like the leaves compelled to fly
Before the conquering blasts discomfited.

In a stern mood this epic scroll was penned,
The voice faints like a warrior's dying moan;
The tragic tale speeds swiftly to its end,
The exulting storm raves o'er the waste alone.

From what imperious fire, aching within,
Outleaped this glowing lava of the heart?
By what long penance did this wizard win
From the witch Life the secret of her art?

Or did he boldly storm her palace gate,
And woo from her own hand her wand of power
Whereon the lightning's fiery shuttles wait,
Weaving a universe to mould a flower?

Ask, while the mighty music surges by,
Borne on the tempest's wing; from passion's deep
Summoning great visions to the inward eye,
And quickening thoughts that rouse the soul from sleep.