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                              Purcell Ode

                            And Other Poems




                              Purcell Ode

                            And Other Poems

                                  By
                            Robert Bridges

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                                Chicago
                            Way & Williams
                                 1896


                               COPYRIGHT
                           BY WAY & WILLIAMS

                               MDCCCXCVI

                           University Press:
               JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.



            Two Hundred Copies printed on Van Gelder paper.




CONTENTS


                          PAGE

ODE TO MUSIC                29

THE FAIR BRASS              42

NOVEMBER                    45

THE SOUTH WIND              49

WINTER NIGHTFALL            53




PREFACE


The words of the Ode as here given differ slightly from those which
appeared with Dr. Parry’s Cantata, sung at the Leeds Festival and at the
Purcell Commemoration in London last year.

Since the poem was never perfected as a musical ode,--and I was not in
every particular responsible for it,--I have tried to make it more
presentable to readers, and in so doing have disregarded somewhat its
original intention. But it must still ask indulgence, because it still
betrays the liberties and restrictions which seemed to me proper in an
attempt to meet the requirements of modern music.

It is a current idea that, by adopting a sort of declamatory treatment,
it is possible to give to almost any poem a satisfactory musical
setting;[1] whence it would follow that a non-literary form is a
needless extravagance. From this general condemnation I wish to defend
my poem, or rather my judgment, for I do not intend to discuss or defend
my poem in detail, nor to try to explain what I hoped to accomplish when
I engaged in the work; it is still further from my intention that
anything which I shall say should be taken as applying to the music with
which my ode was, far beyond its deserts, honored and beautified. But I
am concerned in combating the general proposition that modern music, by
virtue of a declamatory method, is able satisfactorily to interpret
almost any kind of good poetry.

Such questions are generally left to the musician, and it should not be
unwelcome to hear what may be said on the literary side. I shall
therefore state what appear to me to be impediments in the way of this
announced happy marriage of music and poetry, and enumerate some of the
difficulties which, it seems to me, must especially beset the musician
who would attempt to interpret pure literature by musical declamation.

First, the repetitions in music and poetry are incompatible. Though some
simple forms dependent on repetition are common to both, yet the general
laws are in the two arts contraries. In poetry repetition is avoided, in
music it is looked for. A musical phrase has its force and significance
increased by repetition, and is often in danger of losing its
significance unless it be repeated; whereas such a repetition in poetry
is likely to endanger the whole effect of the original statement. And
when reiterations that can be compared occur in both, then the second
occurrence will in music be generally the strongest, but in poetry the
weakest; and the intensity of the repetitions