cymbals and long blown tone of horns. The very essence it is of fairy
life. And so the joy is not unmixed with just a touch of awe. Amidst the
whole tintinnabulation is a soft resonant echo of horns below, like an
image in a lake. The air hangs heavy with dim romance until the sudden
return to first fairy verse in sounds almost human. Once more come the
frightening pauses.

The end is in a great crash of sweet sound--a glad awakening to day and
to reality.




CHAPTER IV

A SYMPHONY TO DANTE'S "DIVINA COMMEDIA"

_FOR ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF SOPRANOS AND ALTOS_


The "Divina Commedia" may be said in a broad view to belong to the great
design by which Christian teaching was brought into relation with
earlier pagan lore. The subject commands all the interest of the epics
of Virgil and of Milton. It must be called the greatest Christian poem
of all times, and the breadth of its appeal and of its art specially
attest the age in which it was written, when classic pagan poetry broke
upon the world like a great treasure-trove.

The subject was an ideal one in Dante's time,--a theme convincing and