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These rites performed, the men and maids began to sing brown arms lounging on the table, and red hands folded in white aprons serious at first in hymn-like cadences, then breaking into wilder measures with a jodel at the close. There is a measured solemnity in the performance, which strikes the stranger as somewhat comic.
Its tone comes near to that of some rare stringed instrument. One feels that perhaps the wood thrush has more compass and power, if he would only let himself out, but on the whole he comes a little short of the pure, serene, hymn-like strain of the hermit. Yet those who have heard only the wood thrush may well place him first on the list.
A trumpet sounds the fundamental theme, which is repeated in full harmony after instruments of gentler voice have sung a hymn-like phrase, as follows: It is the first period of the "Salve Regina" sung by Earthly Penitents in the finale of the prologue. The canticle is chanted through, its periods separated by reiterations of the fundamental theme.
At any rate, the curled lip, as it were, contradicts the jesting words, and the careless exterior does not altogether conceal the seething rage within. The hymn-like snatches of sustained melody with the intervening airy interludes are very lovely. These are the principal features, to describe all the whims is of course impossible.
Suddenly, above this wild and rushing melody, rose a single dulcet voice, soft yet patiently insistent, oft repeated with many variations, like some angel singing a promise of better things to come, a voice which, as the wailing tumult died, swelled to a chorus of rejoicing, louder and louder, resolving back into that majestic hymn-like measure, but soaring now in joyous triumph, rising, deepening to an ecstasy of praise.
As a mere piece of music, a succession of tones and combinations of tones, the rare quality of this prelude cannot but be felt; and though we may not at once grasp its full significance, no one can miss the sequence of the emotions expressed the grave reflection of the opening, the hymn-like succeeding passage, the gradual mounting of the music into a beauteous, calm morning air, some realm of ecstatic peace far above the clouds, the gradual return to the mood of the opening.
I have got it at last!" He then showed me the words he was setting to music. They began: "Forty years on, when afar and asunder, Parted are those who are singing to-day." They want something hymn-like, something grand, and now I've found it.
With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like notes of the wood-thrush and yield ourselves wholly to the spell of his rich recital. Make the most of it while it lasts. Like all the glories of the May woods it is evanescent.
He turned back to the organ and from its quivering pipes rose a series of noble chords, stately and solemn, a hymn-like measure, rolling in awful majesty, shattered all at once by a wild confusion of screaming discords that yet gradually resolved into a wailing melody of passionate despair beneath which I seemed to hear the relentless tramp of countless marching feet with, ever and anon, a far, faint echo of that first grand and stately motive.
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