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LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS. 105 |
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more for melody than for meaning, and when an attempt is made to reproduce its effect deliberately, as has been done by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, the result is simply artificial and bizarre, in spite of the skill, the intensity, and the poetical power of Sister Helen, and the melody of the most perfect example of the modern imitation of the refrain in Morris's The Wind.
Wind, Wind, thou art sad, art thou kind ? Wind, Wind, unhappy ; thou art hlind, Yet still thou wanderest the lily seed to find.
Perhaps the most perfect example of the lyric song, in which the melody is mingled with and sustains and elevates the feeling, and both are conjoined in an effect which melts the heart and possesses the ear, although the strain is not of so high a rapture of love or sorrow as parts of Burns's Ae Fond Kiss or Lady Anne Bothwell's Balow, and is of a peaceful sweetness and resignation rather than passion, is The Land of the Leal, by Carolina, Lady Nairne. In its original and simplest form, before she had interpolated a verse to express some of her theological ideas, it is the perfect interpretation of a sweet, solemn, and simple thought, the tenderest and purest emotion, breathed in an equally simple, but absolutely perfect melody, that is like the flowing of limpid water, crystal |
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