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But the music of their womanly heroism still lingers in the nation's memory, and makes a tender minor-chord in the battle-hymn of freedom. "The reform in literature isn't as vigorous as I could wish; but a sharp attack of mental and moral dyspepsia will soon teach our people that French confectionery and the bad pastry of Wood, Bracdon, Yates & Co. is not the best diet for the rising generation.
All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial were displayed colour and form and ordered motion; noble music set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpets more exultingly.
the favourite battle-hymn, chanting which the Protestant armies marched to victory on many a hard-fought field the hymn sung by the host of Gustavus Adolphus on the eve of the fatal fight of Lutzen.
The old battle-hymn seemed to strike the very mood of the meeting; the whole throng took it up, and they sang it, stanza by stanza. It was rolling forth like a mighty organ-chant as they came to the fervid closing:
A turn in the road showed the Prussians the enormous size of the enemy's army. Silence prevailed for a few moments. Suddenly, here and there a voice could be heard singing a battle-hymn, and soon, accompanied by the band, the whole army was breathing out in song an earnest prayer to God. A guard, approaching the king, said: "Is it your majesty's desire that the soldiers should cease singing?"
In the great hush and cool that is before a July dawn, God showed himself to the men, and they sang the "Battle-hymn of the Republic," but it sounded sweetly and yearningly, as if sung by thousands of lovers: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword His truth is marching on.
The whole tone and atmosphere of the occasion seemed religious rather than political. The old-timers among the delegates, who found themselves in the new party for diverse reasons, selfish, sincere, or mixed, must have felt astonishment at themselves as they stood and shouted out Onward Christian Soldiers as the battle-hymn of their new allegiance.
From the leisure of Monsieur Gregoriev, came his second ballet "The Enchantress" a series of rhythmical minor melodies in the most delicate of the composer's moods; a military overture, which was one long series of tempestuously mounting climaxes, built on the theme of the Russian battle-hymn; six songs to poems of Heine, with piano accompaniment; and, finally, the third of his symphonies, declared by Balakirev too technical, as more resembling a clever experiment in orchestral possibilities, than a serious effort in the most rigid of classical forms.
He knew but one prelude, and this was that forgotten battle-hymn which perhaps a few elderly people will recollect if I recall to their memories that the musical picture begins with the advance of Ziethen's Hussars. From this march the Sexton managed to swing over, with transitions which, to be sure, were not infrequently rather bold, into the ordinary church melodies.
Austria was obliged to accept an armistice, a humiliation she had not foreseen when she arrayed her mighty armies against the First Consul. Napoleon gloried in this success, proposing to Rouget de Lisle, the writer of the Marseillaise, that a battle-hymn should commemorate the coming of peace with victory.
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