APOSTROPHE TO JOHANN SEBAS

TIAN BACH

(Prestissimo)

Some who hear are rapt away
From the environment of clay,
Borne on wings of rapture
From Earth's trifling toys,
Ready to recapture
Something of Heaven's joys
Which they long had lost
At such bitter cost

Borne beyond the evening star
Infinitely far

To the pearly gates

Where the Flame-guard waits
Each with his flashing scimitar!

Oh, the soul's attuned ear
Songs of heavenly choirs may hear
Praise to God forth-pouring,

Set to harps of gold

Struck by rapt adoring

Angel hosts white-stoled,
While the crystalline

Harmonies divine

Of the far-revolving spheres,
Carrying golden years,
Swell like organ-notes,
And above all floats

Love's eternal hymn of joys and tears.

Master Bach, this was thy power!
Before thine organ seated
Didst thou make music flower

Like radiant many-prismed blossoms
In sterile human bosoms!

Oh, miracle repeated

A thousand times in thy dear life;

When men defeated,

Undone by strife,

New courage gained,

New hopes conceived;
When hearts sin-stained

Once more believed
That purity might be attained!
When Love, heart-banisht

Exile with broken wings,

Mourning her Eden vanisht

Once more to Hope's hand clings! And sees a beauteous vision

Of joy elysian,

Crowned with immortal rays,
And with an infinite yearning
Beholds the sweet returning

Of paradisal days!

Nathan Haskell Dole.

CHOPIN'S NOCTURNE IN G MINOR

Faint through the twilight hazes
Shimmers one palpitant star;
Faint through the woodland mazes
The Angelus sounds afar.

Only the brook's murmur golden
Falls on the wanderer's ear;
Voices of memories olden

The soul holds breath to hear.

Voices of joy and sorrow

Vanished and far away

As the dawn of the sun-bathed morrow
Seems from this dying day,

When faint through the twilight hazes
Shimmers eve's palpitant star;

And faint through the woodland mazes
The Angelus dies afar.

Arlo Bates.

SCHUBERT

Who would know thee, a loving heart must bring,

And hear with his heart's ears; else shall he

miss

Thy perfect message and his own true bliss,
As bird that fain would soar on single wing,
But faints and falls in its unequal flight;

For deepest depths of human tenderness

Are thine, the mother's love and dear

caress,

The wanderer's longing for the blessed sight Of home and Fatherland, the lover's heart, Wild with despair, or thrilled with joyance

sweet

Of happy souls who full requital meet. Thus nature's yearnings find in thee a part; O gentlest Master of them all, — since pain And joy do live, thou hast not lived in vain! Zitella Cocke.

BEETHOVEN

Music as of the winds when they awake, Wailing, in the mid-forest; music that raves

Like moonless tides about forlorn sea-caves On desolate shores, where swell weird songs. and break

In peals of demon laughter; chords athirst
With restless anguish of divine desires-
The voice of a vexed soul ere it aspires
With a great cry for light; anon a burst
Of passionate joy-fierce joy of conscious
might,

Down-sinking in voluptuous luxury;

Rich harmonies, full-pulsed with deep delight, And melodies dying deliciously

As odorous sighs breathed through the quiet night

By violets. Thus Beethoven speaks for me.

John Todhunter.

BACH, IN THE FUGUES AND
PRELUDES

Contentedly with strictest strands confined, Sports in the sun that oceanic mind:

To leap their bourn these waves did never long,

Or roll against the stars their rock-bound

song.

William Watson.