"A Ballad of Forgotten Tunes: to V.L."

FORGOTTEN seers of lost repute

  That haunt the banks of Acheron,              

Where have you dropped the broken lute

  You played in Troy or Calydon?

  O ye that sang in Babylon

By foreign willows cold and grey,

  Fall’n are the harps ye hanged thereon,

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

De Coucy, is your music mute,

  The quaint old plain-chant woe-begone

That served so many a lover’s suit?

  Oh, dead as Adam or Guédron!

  Then, sweet De Caurroy, try upon

Your virginals a virelay;

  Or play, Orlando, one pavonne—

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

But ye whose praises none refute,

  Who have the immortal laurel won;—

Trill me your quavering close acute,

  Astorga, dear unhappy Don!

  One air, Galuppi! Sarti, one

So many fingers used to play!—

  Dead as the ladies of Villon,

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

                Envoy.

  Vernon, in vain you stoop to con

The slender, faded notes to-day—

  The Soul that dwelt in them is gone:

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!