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His first song, "Rock-a-bye, Baby," he sold for twelve printed copies, and it is said to have had a larger sale than any cradle-song ever published in this country. His song, "Protestations," is tender, and has a violin obbligato that is really more important than the voice part. The song, "Parting," is wild with passion, and bases a superb melody on a fitting harmonic structure.
At first, the strains were soft and low, for the child's benefit, alone, scarce audible at any distance. Almost instantly she quieted, and, as Vanderlyn came up from dinner in the big saloon and glanced across the rail, as usual, he saw a little group of fascinated folk there, close about the flute-player, and faintly heard the sweet, pathetic strains of an old German cradle-song.
On the morning of Cosima's birthday, the orchestra stealthily collected on the steps of the house, and with Wagner as conductor, and with Hans Richter as trumpeter, Cosima's thirtieth birthday was ushered in with benevolent auspices, the child being then a year old. The Idyll itself, as Mr. Finck says, "is not merely an orchestral cradle-song; it is the embodiment of love, paternal and conjugal."
But Melissa was listening with such devout attention to the chant that she did not hear him. The fatigue which had reached such a painful climax had, during this peaceful rest, given way to a blissful unconsciousness of self. It was a kind of happiness to feel no longer the burden of exhaustion, and the song of the wanderers was like a cradle-song, lulling her to sweet dreams.
There are looks of indecision, tense resolve, and helpless perplexity. Eagerly scanning the arched blue, he notes stellar assurance. Hushed as by cradle-song, every harassing emotion subsides. Some odd, inquisitive conceits grow out of these moods. Gazing from steamer deck into lighted canopy he soliloquizes: "What vigils are those old guards commissioned to keep over this sail?
She had had no guiding-star, except the eagles on the standards; she had had no cradle-song, except the rataplan and the reveille; she had had no sense of duty taught her, except to face fire boldly, never to betray a comrade, and to worship but two deities, "la Gloire" and "la France."
She would have laughed at the thought that anyone could be afraid of her, but she felt instinctively that a soothing monologue, a sort of cradle-song, was what the occasion demanded; so she began to speak of the bluebells, the woods, the weather, saying with a sort of languid simplicity, the things that the moment suggested; "babbling," as she subsequently assured Judith, "of green fields," until she had so lulled and bored him, that in self-defence he produced an observation.
And there was one that went on crying whether the mother was at home or at work. Her milk had failed her. From somewhere down in the cellars the sleepy tones of a cradle-song rose up through the shaft; it was only "Grete with the child," who was singing her rag-doll asleep. The real mothers did not sing.
She spoke not a word she sang to it a cradle-song, and the thought came to Paul that she seemed as an angel, and this must be an echo of his own early heaven before his life had descended to earth. A strange peace came over him as he sat there watching her, his thoughts vague and dreamy of some beautiful sweet tenderness he knew not what.
It's all tears and laughter as I look back upon that admirable time, in which nothing was so romantic as our intense vision of the real. No fool's paradise ever rustled such a cradle-song. It was anything but Bohemia it was the very temple of Mrs. Grundy. We knew we were too critical, and that made us sublimely indulgent; we believed we did our duty or wanted to, and that made us free to dream.
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