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BEETHOVEN'S MUSIC TO FAUST

O God of loving mercy, wilt Thou deign
To hear my prayer that yet a little while,
Only a little space I may beguile
This misery, creating once again?

Be it not yet in vain that I have learned
To weave the myriad-colored robe of
thought,

With purest gold and richest gems inwrought,

While in my heart of hearts Thy fire burned.

If it be wrong, my brother, to have grieved At thy distress, and sought to enter in To all that's hidden, then our art is sin, And we are all deceivers and deceived.

My sister, I have lived thy life with thee From merry childhood to the thoughtful days

Of womanhood with forward-looking gaze And suffered with thee in thine agony.

And paid the utmost farthing to atone

For all thou didst, and found at last release.

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From this world's mystery in perfect peace.

— Fetch me my book and leave me here alone. Henry Johnson.

BEETHOVEN

Most intellectual master of the art,

Which, best of all, teaches the mind of man The universe in all its varied plan

What strangely mingled thoughts thy strains impart !

Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart, There the rich bass the Reason's balance

shows;

Here breathes the softest sigh that Love e'er knows;

There sudden fancies, seeming without chart, Float into wildest breezy interludes;

The part is all forgot - hopes sweetly breathe, And our whole being glows - when lo! beneath

The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes !

Startled, we try to free us from the chain

Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine

again!

Margaret Fuller Ossoli.

BEETHOVEN

O sovereign Master! stern and splendid

power,

That calmly dost both time and death defy; Lofty and lone as mountain-peaks that tower, Leading our thoughts up to the eternal sky: Keeper of some divine, mysterious key,

Raising us far above all human care, Unlocking awful gates of harmony

To let heaven's light in on the world's despair;

Smiter of solemn chords that still command
Echoes in souls that suffer and aspire,
In the great moment while we hold thy hand,
Baptized with pain and rapture, tears and
fire,

God lifts our saddened foreheads from the dust,

The everlasting God, in whom we trust!

Celia Thaxter.

A MEMORY OF RUBINSTEIN

He of the ocean is, its thunderous waves Echo his music; while far down the shore

Mad laughter hurries a white, blowing

spume.

I hear again in memory that wild storm; The winds of heaven go rushing round the world,

And broods above the rage one sphinx-like face.

Richard Watson Gilder.

MOZART

As through the leafy close the crystal shine
Of streamlet purling on its way is seen,
Nor in its mazes down the clust'ring green
Of interlacing boughs and pendent vine,
Nor 'neath the shadows of the day's decline
Is hid, so doth thy melody's bright sheen
Flash through close harmony's inwoven

screen;

And well we call thy matchless strains divine! Who lists shall live in Golden Age once

more,

Shall catch the voice of sweet Arcadian lutes,

Behold, as erst, glad nymphs dance on the shore,

To tabor's sound and dithyrambic flutes,

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