THE CENTENNIAL CANTATA

THE CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF

COLUMBIA.

1776-1876.

A CANTАТА.

FROM this hundred-terraced height,
Sight more large with nobler light
Ranges down yon towering years.
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears

Shine and fall, shine and fall,
While old voices rise and call

Yonder where the to-and-fro

Weltering of my Long-Ago

Moves about the moveless base

Far below my resting-place.

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying,
Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea,
Hearts within Farewell dear England sighing,
Winds without But dear in vain replying,
Gray-lipp'd waves about thee shouted, crying
"No! It shall not be!"

Jamestown, out of thee

Plymouth, thee-thee, Albany—
Winter cries, Ye freeze: away!

MUSICALAN-
NOTATIONS.

Full chorus:
sober, meas-
ured and yet
majestic
progressions
of chords.

Chorus: the sea and the winds mingling their voices with human sighs.

Fever cries, Ye burn: away!

Hunger cries, Ye starve: away!

Vengeance cries, Your graves shall stay!

Quartette:

a meagre

and despair ing minor.

Fullchorus: return of

the motive of

the second movement, but worked up with greater

fury, to the climax of

the shout at

the last line.

Then old Shapes and Masks of Things,
Framed like Faiths or clothed like Kings
Ghosts of Goods once fleshed and fair,
Grown foul Bads in alien air-

War, and his most noisy lords,

Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords→→→
Error, Terror, Rage and Crime,

All in a windy night of time

Cried to me from land and sea,

No! Thou shalt not be !

A rapid and intense whisperchorus.

Chorus of jubilation, until the appeal of the last two lines introduces a tone of doubt: it

Hark!

Huguenots whispering yea in the dark,
Puritans answering yea in the dark!
Yea like an arrow shot true to his mark,
Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial.
Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial,
Foiled, still beginning,

Soiled, but not sinning,

Toil through the stertorous death of the Night,
Toil when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light,
Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight.

Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace,
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face,

Despite the land, despite the sea,

I was: I am : and I shall be—

then sinks to How long, Good Angel, O how long?

pianissimo.

Basso solo:

the good Angel replies:

Sing me from Heaven a man's own song!

"Long as thine Art shall love true love,
Long as thy Science truth shall know,

Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
Long as thy Law by law shall grow,

Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,

So long, dear Land of all my love,

Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!"

O Music, from this height of time my Word un- Fullchorus fold:

In thy large signals all men's hearts Man's heart

behold:

Mid-heaven unroll thy chords as friendly flags unfurled,

And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the world.

jubilation and

quelcome.

NOTE TO THE CANTATA.

The annotated musical directions which here accompany The Cantata, arranged for the composer's use, were first sent with the newlycompleted text in a private letter to Mr. Gibson Peacock, of Philadelphia.

I am enabled to give these annotations and the author's own introduction to his work through the kindness of Mr. Peacock: the friend who, while yet an entire stranger, awakened and led the public recognition of Mr. Lanier's place in the world of art. M. D. L.

.

doing.

"BALTIMORE, January 18, 1876.

The enclosed will show you partly what I have been The Centennial Commission has invited me to write a poem which shall serve as the text for a Cantata (the music to be by Dudley Buck, of New York), to be sung at the opening of the Exhibition, under Thomas' direction. I've written the enclosed. Necessarily I had to think out the musical conceptions as well as the poem, and I have briefly indicated these along the margin of each movement. I have tried to make the whole as simple and as candid as a melody of Beethoven's: at the same time expressing the largest