29 NOVEMBER 1884, Page 14

WAGNER'S "PARSIFAL."

BY A PHILISTINE.

[TO C. AL If.]

0, FOR a lilt of melody ! gracious boon,

Grudged by our modern critic, merciless, Whose soul, sick of soft harmony's caress, And surfeited by tame Mozartian tune, Finds Paradise giv'n to it, all too soon, Amid this waste of howling wilderness, Where stolid Teutons vent their souls' distress, Like hungry bloodhounds baying at the moon.

Yet as to one, racked by delirium, A cool hand's gentle touch may haply bring Brief calm and respite to the labouring brain ; So, mid the ceaseless dinning of the drum, The blare of brass and shriek of tortured string, We hail the magic of an old world strain.* C. L. G.