Scan 78

Songs of my violin, 1901

24 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1Then clouds of harmony drift slowly by

2And bring a restful play of light and shade

3With shadows that grow longer one by one,

4Till soon the ear detects that gloom of sound

5Which is the twilight of the minor key;

6From which emerges, like the moon from clouds,

7The deep-voiced 'cello with a silver song

8That glides across the harmonies serene;

9As o'er the glassy bosom of a lake,

10Half shrouded in transparent, moonlit mist,

11There moves a graceful boat with feathered oars,

12And disappears into the vague opaque.

13So seems the 'cello's song to draw more near

14Ere, somnolently soft, it dies away

15To sobbing piccicato of the strings,

16Leaving a hush-wake mid the rippling sounds.

17Now from the chord of the diminished seventh

18There bursts in suddenness upon the ear

19The major theme—refreshed for having slept.

20The violin is there to catch its prize

21And, like the lark, which trails its song to heaven,

22It lifts it upward in a wreath of thirds

23And breathes an ecstasy of long-necked notes

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.