Coro

“ The coronet of an earl (fig. 23) differs again by having eight tall rays on each of which is set a pearl, the intervening spaces being occupied by strawberry leaves one-fourth of the height of the rays. ”

“ Carlton. “As I was leaving the patient, the moonbeams shone on the landing through the staircase window, and for the moment I certainly did think I saw a face—the face of a person leaning against the wall.”
“What sort of a face?” interrupted the coroner. “A man’s or a women’s?” ”

“ The lingering gloom from choir, nave and bay,
And a great minster's glory met our sight.
Blindly along life's cloister do we grope,
We seek a gate that leads to life immortal,
We see it loom before us dim and vast,
And doubt's dark shadow's veil the light of hope:
When lo, Death's hand flings wide the sombre portal,
And light unfading meets our gaze at last.
CATHEDRAL VESPERS
The gloom of night creeps down the shadowy choir,
But through the great rose-window's gorgeous bloom
Red shafts of sunset fall upon a tomb,
And makes the gray stone burn—a crimson pyre. ”

“ Toll, toll for him, the youthful one, O solemn bell! O funeral bell!
Cathedral bell of time!
“Mourn, mourn for him, the youthful one, O heart of life and bloom!
Death dimmed the splendor of thy sun, O earth! within his tomb. ”

“ One seemed to be sitting far up the nave of some great cathedral, and to hear from the distant choir the choristers chaunting a litany, answering one another, and then swelling and joining in a universal chorus. Then, while they were singing, it was as if a great storm arose, the hail rattled and the rain splashed against the windows, the thunder crashed overhead, and the wind howled around. ”

“ The lamp still stood burning upon the crystal shrine—the cross lay where the hands of the young mourner had placed it, and the cold image beneath wore the same tranquil look, as if resigned to the solitude of death—of all lone things the loneliest. Remembering the lips that I had seen kiss that cross, and kindling with the recollection, I raised it passionately to my own;—but, at the same moment, I fancied the dead eyes met mine, and, saddened in the midst of my ardour, I replaced the cross upon the shrine. ”

“ The violin fairly sobbed and groaned and wailed, as if the spirit of unconsolable grief were tugging heavily at the strings. Anon, a bell tolled solemnly out of it and its heavy knell clanged through the room. And then the music rested for a minute; and in the silence it seemed as if the grave came into sight as plainly as if the eyes of all were actually looking at its open mouth. Again the music sounded, and the sods, one after another, fell on the coffin, dull and heavy, changing to a gravelly, smothered sound as the grave filled. ”

“ Sweet bell! Church bell!
When earthly joys and sorrows end,
And towards our long repose we tend,
How mournfully thy tone doth call
The weepers to the funeral,
And to the last abode of clay,
With solemn knell mark out the way,
Sad bell! Church bell! ”

“ When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear words of the hymn—
"Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown,"
and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore. ”

“ Out of the dim daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the choir in response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven for God, and the brightness of His attributes shines through it. ”

“ ORGAN. To dream of hearing the solemn and enchanting music of a church organ is a sad omen to young girls, as it foretells their early death: if a gentleman dreams this, it points to the death of some young girl in whom he takes an interest, and perhaps to his sweetheart, if he has one. To imagine you hear some lively tune on a street organ is also a bad omen, as it foretells that you will soon attend a funeral. ”

“ No thought of physical corruption jars upon our memories of the dead. The opening words of the speaker are said, a hidden choir harmoniously chants of hope and life, and now the end has come. With the words ‘ashes to ashes’ a white pall is thrown over the dais, and we have looked upon our friend for the last time. The dais noiselessly sinks from sight, a short hour is spent in listening to a funeral oration, or in contemplation, until the dais, still covered with the pall, rises from below. ”

“ A little hunchbacked guide, with great, glassy eyes, and teeth like yellow fangs, led us up the aisle to the screen beside the high altar, where we looked between the tombs and the monuments, upon the long procession of men circling around the coffin in the choir, each with a lighted candle in hand. ”

“ Now the music deepens into a majestic march—now it swells into a holy hymn—and now it dies away elegiac-like, as if mourning over a tomb. Vague, indefinite, uncertain, dream-like, and visionary all; but never else than beautiful; and ever and anon, we know not why, sublime. It ceases in the hush of night—and we awaken as if from a dream. ”

“ Amidst trembling prayers, in the darkened room, in the presence of some sweet shrouded and coffined form, the memory of some soft sealed face and folded hands, and spirit for ever at rest, has rose the hymn into pensive rapture:
Are we not tending upward too,
As fast as time can move? ”

“ On hearing my melody, a prayer breaks involuntarily from the lip, and my last echo goes to breathe itself away on the brink of hidden graves—an echo borne by the wind that seems to pray in a low voice as it waves the tall grass that covers them. ”

“ And nought but ashes mark thy rest;
When stars shall fall, and skies grow dark,
And proud suns quench their glowworm spark,
Keep thou that hope, to light thy gloom,
Till the last trumpet rends the tomb. ”

“ Here I had the pleasure of listening to the choral service, performed by the full choir of men and boys attached to the cathedral; and I stood out among the monuments of old archbishops and warriors of five hundred years agone, and heard that sweet chant float upon the swelling peals of the organ, away up amid the lofty groined arches of the grand old minster, till its dying echoes were lost amid the mysterious tracery above, or the grand, full chorus of powerful voices made the lofty [93] roof to ring again, as it were, with heavenly melody. ”

“ Drawn by the tranquillity of this retreat—its trees and flowers and dews—all singing-birds of the region come here to build and brood. No other sounds than their pure cadencies disturb the echoless air except the simple hymns around the altar, the vesper bell, the roll of the organ, the deep chords of the piano, or the thrum of the harp. ”

“ This chant, which a few old men buried in the gloom sang from afar over that beautiful creature, full of youth and life, caressed by the warm air of spring, inundated with sunlight, was the mass for the dead. ”

“ It has all the deep and powerful accents of high musical poetry from the religious accent, calm and imposing, to the wild clamors of the orgy. The composer can make it chant like a choir of priests, threaten, lament, ring a funeral knell, raise a hymn of glory, break forth into frantic cries, or sound a dread flourish to awaken the dead, or to doom the living. ”

“ Well, just as I commenced the hymn of the angels at my first Mass, there was a crash of music and singing from the gallery over the door, that made my old heart leap with joy and pride. I never expected it; and the soft tones of the harmonium, and the blending of the children's voices, floating out there in the dark of the little chapel, made tears of delight stream down the wrinkles of my cheeks. ”

“ Likewise the sounds of life assailed the faint senses of the dead through the thin crevice in the wall of the tomb:—always the far-off, drowsy murmur made by the toiling of the city's heart; sometimes sounds of passing converse and of steps,—echoes of music and of laughter,—chanting and chattering of children at play,—and the liquid babble of beautiful brown women. ”

“ When the sweet tones of a small organ, mingling with the voices of a select choir, gave "glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," the young children of the forest started from their seats in wondering joy, while the changing color, or quivering lip of the elders, evinced that the hallowed music awoke the cherished echoes of memory. ”

“ On her knees before a little altar, with her rosary in her hand, she is amorously listening to the songs which a young man, seated on a bed, addresses to her, accompanying them with his lute. Death comes to put out the tapers burning on the altar, and to change into sadness the pleasures of this conversation. ”

“ Far off across the valley, the strains are caught up, and sent back from the tops of the high mountains. Then it sounds as if a great choir of angels had come down from Heaven to sing glory to God, and to bring greetings to all good souls. Nowhere in all the world is there such sweet music made by echoes. ”

“ Imagine yourself in a country church, the sole visitor in the ghostly silence and the solemn twilight, with spectres all around you in the memorials of the dead and memories of the living, and then fancy the organist silently stealing, also alone, to the organ, and giving out to the evening air some beautifully solemn anthem with all the sadness of death, and none of the exultant joy of resurrection, and then you will get some faint idea of the pent-up emotion which filled every sympathetic heart in the great assembly as the Old Man finally came to the closing words of his great speech. ”

“ Till added to that heavenly choir,
We raise our songs of triumph higher,
And praise thee in a nobler strain;
Out soar the first-born Seraph's flight,
And sing with all our friends in light,
Thy everlasting love to man. ”

“ To the bottom of my grave I heard the disturbing trumpet, and then the voice of the Prophet commanding that the bodies of the dead should rise, the souls be restored to them, and that all mankind should appear in the Valley of Judgment. ”

“ The heavy sound of the funeral bell may, in crowded cities, lose half its influence by falling upon ears which use has attuned to its sound; but in a small and remote village death comes at long intervals, and reads a more solemn lesson, lest he may be altogether forgotten. ”

“ The Chorus steps aside. He approaches and takes her hand. Where hast thou been? for sure some envious power Has hid thee from my gaze: long have I sought thee: E'en from the hour when 'mid the funeral rites Of the dead prince, like some angelic vision, Lit with celestial brightness, on my sight Thou shonest, no other image in my breast Waking or dreaming, lives; nor to thyself Unknown thy potent spells; my glance of fire, My faltering accents, and my hand that lay Trembling in thine, bespoke my ecstasy! ”

“ In solemn courtyards, midst the men-at-arms;
Which suddenly would leap those stony walls
And spring up with loud laughter into trees.
I walked in busy streets where music oft
Went on the march with men; and ofttimes heard
The organ in cathedral, when the boys
Like nightingales sang in that thunderstorm;
The organ, with its rich and solemn tones—
As near a God's voice as a man conceives;
Nor ever dreamt the silent misery
That solemn organ brought to homeless men. ”

“ The reader seems to be moving about in cathedral glooms, by dimly lighted altars, with sad procession of ghostly penitents and mourners fading into the darkness to the sad music of lamenting choirs. But the light which falls upon the gloom is the light of heaven, and amid tears and sighs, over farewells and crushed happiness, hope sings a vigorous though subdued strain. ”

“ Any sound at the tomb—a sigh of pity, or a plaintive melody—rising upward, comes back again,—faintly indeed, yet distinctly and sweetly—as if the very air trembled in sympathy, repeating the accents of love and of despair, or as if unseen spirits were floating above, and singing the departing soul to its rest. ”

“ The trumpet of the day of judgment is about to sound; the dead are about to arise from their tombs; in the midst of thunder and lightning, and surrounded by archangels carrying flaming swords, the Eternal is about to pass judgment upon us all! ”

“ The burial service of the church is particularly impressive. The coffin being deposited in the middle of the chapel, a hymn is sung by the congregation, for they value and carefully cultivate music as a science, and the responses of their liturgies are attended with peculiar effect. ”

“ The procession is then formed, preceded by the trumpet-band, who blow sacred melodies; and the corpse is carried on a bright-coloured bier, covered with a striped pall, by four brothers, dressed in their usual clothes. The nearest relatives follow, and behind them the community, according to kin. They form a circle round the grave and sing a hymn, accompanied by the trumpets, during which the coffin is lowered. The burial service is then read, and the simple rite concludes with a benediction. ”

“ On the lecyths which represent the prothesis, it will be observed that the women have their hands on their heads as if tearing their hair [122] although this gesture may be only a conventional sign of mourning [123] adopted to indicate grief in the funeral monuments and vases just as an interior may be symbolized by a door or a pillar that supports the roof, a temple by an altar and the fact that the scene was out of doors was indicated by foliage in some form or by the branch of a tree [124] . ”