Argument
Hail to thee, Sound!—The power of Euterpe in all the scenes of life— in religion; in works of charity; in soothing troubles by means of music; in all humane and high purposes; in war; in grief; in the social circle; the children’s lullaby; the dance; the ballad; in conviviality; when far from home; at evening—the whole ending with an allegorical chorus, rejoicing at the building of a mighty hall erected for the recreation of a nation destined to take no inconsiderable part in the future history of the world.
Overture
No. 1 Chorus
All hail to thee, Sound! Since the timeCalliope’s son took the lyre,And lulled in the heart of their climeThe demons of darkness and fire;Since Eurydice’s lover brought tearsTo the eyes of the Princes of Night,Thou hast been, through the world’s weary years,A marvellous source of delight—Yea, a marvellous source of delight!
In the wind, in the wave, in the fallOf the water, each note of thine dwells;But Euterpe hath gathered from allThe sweetest to weave into spells.She makes a miraculous powerOf thee with her magical skill;And gives us, for bounty or dower,The accents that soothe us or thrill!Yea, the accents that soothe us or thrill!
All hail to thee, Sound! Let us thankThe great Giver of light and of lifeFor the music divine that we’ve drank,In seasons of peace and of strife,Let us gratefully think of the balmThat falls on humanity tired,At the tones of the song or the psalmFrom lips and from fingers inspired—Yea, from lips and from fingers inspired.
No. 2 Quartette and Chorus
When, in her sacred fanesGod’s daughter, sweet Religion, prays,Euterpe’s holier strainsHer thoughts from earth to heaven raise.The organ notes sublimePut every worldly dream to flight;They sanctify the time,And fill the place with hallowed light.
No. 3 Soprano Solo
Yea, and when that meek-eyed maidenMen call Charity, comes fainTo raise up spirits, ladenWith bleak poverty and pain:Often, in her cause enlisted,Music softens hearts like stones;And the fallen are assistedThrough Euterpe’s wondrous tones.
No. 4 Orchestral Intermezzo
No. 5 Chorus
Beautiful is Sound devotedTo all ends humane and high;And its sweetness never floatedLike a thing unheeded by.Power it has on souls encrustedWith the selfishness of years;Yea, and thousands Mammon-rusted,Hear it, feel it, leave in tears.
No. 6 Choral Recitative (Men’s voices only)
When on the battlefield, and in the sightOf tens of thousands bent to smite and slayTheir human brothers, how the soldier’s heartMust leap at sounds of martial music, firedWith all that spirit that the patriot lovesWho seeks to win, or nobly fall, for home!
No. 7 Triumphal March
No. 8 Funeral Chorus
Slowly and mournfully moves a procession,Wearing the signsOf sorrow, through loss, and it halts like a shadowOf death in the pines.Come from the fane that is filled with God’s presence,Sad sounds and deep;Holy Euterpe, she sings of our brother,We listen and weep.Death, like the Angel that passed over Egypt,Struck at us sore;Never again shall we turn at our loved one’sStep at the door.
No. 9 Chorus (Soprano voices only)
But, passing from sorrow, the spiritOf Music, a glory, doth roveWhere it lightens the features of beauty,And burns through the accents of love—The passionate accents of love.
No. 10 Lullaby Song—Contralto
The night-shades gather, and the seaSends up a sound, sonorous, deep;The plover’s wail comes down the lea;By slope and vale the vapours weep,And dew is on the tree;And now where homesteads be,The children fall asleep,Asleep.
A low-voiced wind amongst the leaves,The sighing leaves that mourn the Spring,Like some lone spirit, flits and grieves,And grieves and flits on fitful wing.But where Song is a guest,A lulling dreamy thing,The children fall to rest,To rest.
No. 11 Waltz Chorus
When the summer moon is beamingOn the stirless waters dreaming,And the keen grey summits gleaming,Through a silver starry haze;In our homes to strains entrancingTo the steps, the quickly glancingSteps of youths and maidens dancing,Maidens light of foot as fays.
Then the waltz, whose rhythmic pacesMake melodious happy places,Brings a brightness to young faces,Brings a sweetness to the eyes.Sounds that move us like enthrallingAccents, where the runnel falling,Sends out flute-like voices calling,Where the sweet wild moss-bed lies.
No. 12 Ballad—Tenor
When twilight glides with ghostly treadAcross the western heights,And in the east the hills are redWith sunset’s fading lights;Then music floats from cot and hallWhere social circles met,By sweet Euterpe held in thrall—Their daily cares forget.
What joy it is to watch the shineThat hallows beauty’s faceWhen woman sings the strains divine,Whose passion floods the place!Then how the thoughts and feelings roveAt song’s inspiring breath,In homes made beautiful by love,Or sanctified by death.
What visions come, what dreams arise,What Edens youth will limn,When leaning over her whose eyesHave sweetened life for him!For while she sings and while she plays,And while her voice is low,His fancy paints diviner daysThan any we can know.
No. 13 Drinking Song (Men’s voices only)
But, hurrah! for the table that heavily groansWith the good things that keep in the life:When we sing and we dance, and we drink to the tonesThat are masculine, thorough and blithe.
Good luck to us all! Over walnuts and wineWe hear the rare songs that we knowAre as brimful of mirth as the spring is of shine,And as healthy and hearty, we trow.
Then our glasses we charge to the ring of the staveThat the flush to our faces doth send;For though life is a thing that winds up with the grave,We’ll be jolly, my boys, to the end.Hurrah! Hurrah!Yes, jolly, my boys, to the end!
No. 14 Recitative—Bass
When far from friends, and home, and all the thingsThat bind a man to life, how dear to himIs any old familiar sound that takesHim back to spots where Love and HopeIn past days used to wander hand in handAcross high-flowered meadows, and the pathsWhose borders shared the beauty of the spring,And borrowed splendour from autumnal suns.
No. 15 Chorus (The voices accompanied only by the violins playing “Home, Sweet Home”.)
Then at sea, or in wild wood,Then ashore or afloat,All the scenes of his childhoodCome back at a note;At the turn of a ballad,At the tones of a song,Cometh Memory, pallidAnd speechless so long;And she points with her fingerTo phantom-like years,And loveth to lingerIn silence, in tears.
No. 16 Solo—Bass
In the yellow flame of evening sounds of music come and go,Through the noises of the river, and the drifting of the snow;In the yellow flame of evening, at the setting of the day,Sounds that lighten, fall, and lighten, flicker, faint, and fade away;What they are, behold, we know not, but their honey slakes and slaysHalf the want which whitens manhood in the stress of alien days.Even as a wondrous woman, struck with love and great desire,Hast thou been to us, EUTERPE, half of tears and half of fire;But thy joy is swift and fitful, and a subtle sense of painSighs through thy melodious breathings, takes the rapture from thy strain.In the yellow flame of evening sounds of music come and go.Through the noises of the river, and the drifting of the snow.
No. 17 Recitative—Soprano
And thus it is that Music manifold,In fanes, in Passion’s sanctuaries, or whereThe social feast is held, is still the powerThat bindeth heart to heart; and whether Grief,Or Love, or Pleasure form the link, we know’Tis still a bond that makes Humanity,That wearied entity, a single whole,And soothes the trouble of the heart bereaved,And lulls the beatings in the breast that yearns,And gives more gladness to the gladdest things.
No. 18 Finale—Chorus
Now a vision comes, O brothers, blendedWith supremest sounds of harmony—Comes, and shows a temple, stately, splendid,In a radiant city by the sea.Founders, fathers of a mighty nation,Raised the walls, and built the royal dome,Gleaming now from lofty, lordly station,Like a dream of Athens, or of Rome!And a splendour of sound,A thunder of song,Rolls sea-like around,Comes sea-like along.
The ringing, and ringing, and ringing,Of voices of choristers singing,Inspired by a national joy,Strike through the marvellous hall,Fly by the aisle and the wall,While the organ notes roamFrom basement to dome—Now low as a wail,Now loud as a gale,And as grand as the music that builded old Troy.