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Balder's attack at length yielded, and a drowsy consciousness returned, memory and reason being still partly in abeyance. His heavy, half-closed eyes rested on darkness. A crooning sound was in his ear, a nursery lullaby, wordless but soothing. Where was he? Had he been ill? Was he in his cradle at home? Was Salome sitting by to watch him and give him his medicine?
"Yet it is always beautiful, whether you see it grey or blue; whether it is mad with rage or moaning with pain, or only crooning a lullaby as the world goes to sleep. And in all the wonderful music there is one dominant chord, for the song of the sea, as of the world, is Love.
'Oh, don't bother ME, said the Duchess; 'I never could abide figures! And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line: 'Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases. 'Wow! wow! wow!
"Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou wilt, Mr. Griffith," said the arch youngster, "but remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's chants now, sir; I could always sleep to them, like a gull in the surf. But he that sleeps to-night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it." "Sounds!
There was always a low, solemn murmur of the invisible sea, singing like a lullaby about the peaceful dwelling, and hushing it into a more profound quiet than even utter silence; for utter silence is irksome and fretting to the ear, which needs some slight reverberation to keep the brain behind it still. A perfume of violets, and the more dainty scent of primroses, pervaded the garden.
That lullaby he had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in Norah's arms there before him with this other Zoe the refrain of it kept lilting in his brain.
Now it was binding up the wound of some stricken bird, or raising some crushed flower, and sprinkling its drooping leaves with cooling dew, and now it was closing the eyelids of a tired child who had thrown himself down to rest beneath the forest shade, and singing softly in his ear a fairy lullaby, till he fell asleep.
There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly given up hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn conference. Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe-heels was like singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of foghorn which proved very effective in waking up all Empire east of the tracks, except "the Sloth."
The treatment of Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Southern Lullaby" is unusual, and the songs, "My Ladye" and "The Ideal," both in MS., are noteworthy. Gilchrist has written a vast amount of religious music, including several "Te Deums," of which the one in C and that in A flat are the best, to my thinking.
Under the spell of the music he relaxed, pushed out the footrest of the chair, and lay back at ease, smoking dreamily. The cigar finished and his hands at rest, his eyes closed of themselves. The music, now a crooning lullaby, grew softer and slower, until his deep and regular breathing showed that he was sound asleep.
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