Near and Far (Blunden)/A Quartet
A Quartet
("The Mikado" at Cambridge)
("The Mikado" at Cambridge)
Four singers with a Delphic seriousness
In harmony's kind problem play their part,
And I, who see and hear, think they express
Nature's best gift, the calm delight of art.
The fourfold music takes its twining ways,
And like a rich spring underwood embowers
Their careful theme, which from the tonal maze
Sudden as a nightingale all bright out-flowers
When that dark lady bids a madrigal.
O sweet content, reward in deed, release
Of spirit here in imperfection shut;
Symmetry's answer given without a "but";
Deep-moved I mark their choral masterpiece,
Their union in each swell and dying fall.
In harmony's kind problem play their part,
And I, who see and hear, think they express
Nature's best gift, the calm delight of art.
The fourfold music takes its twining ways,
And like a rich spring underwood embowers
Their careful theme, which from the tonal maze
Sudden as a nightingale all bright out-flowers
When that dark lady bids a madrigal.
O sweet content, reward in deed, release
Of spirit here in imperfection shut;
Symmetry's answer given without a "but";
Deep-moved I mark their choral masterpiece,
Their union in each swell and dying fall.