POETRY.

TO HANS RICHTER.

(A VALEDICTORY ODE IN RHYMED PROSE.) RICHTER ! for nearly five-and-thirty years A household word, a name to conjure with, Familiar in all music-lovers' ears

As the all-British Smith, The hour at last has struck when we must part. Yet, ere you cross the Channel foam To your Viennese home

Am Dortaustrande, where of yore Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven, and later Brahma, Strove and endured and won immortal palms— Bear with a humble rhymester for a space,

While he endeavours to rehearse, In unmelodions verse, The debt we owe you, last of th Olympian race.

Majestically sane, You more than any other reconciled Our insular ears to Wagner's surging strain, Till those who held the Ring A quite unholy thing, Or Tristan furiously reviled, And found it less harmonious than a blizzard, Owned at the last the magic of the wizard.

And yet you never spurned The ancient ways, or turned From your allegiance to the mighty Nine, Beethoven's children, deathless and divine.

Impartial worshipper of the new and old, Ranging from Bach to Strauss (Richard, the overbold, Who loves to make our blood, like his, run cold) You had the nous To cater with an equally good will

Alike for Brahmsian and for Wagnerite,

And all conflicting factions to unite In common admiration of your skill.

Beloved at once by amateurs and pro's—

Like W.G., whom ev'rybody knows, The other Doctor famed for scores,

Who, like you, used to count in threes and fours—

You always kept your band In the capacious hollow of your hand.

For who could challenge orders giv'n by one Who knew exactly all that could be done By reed or strings or brass, And never let a blunder uncorrected pass P Conductors for the most part (so 'twas said About von Billow, but the saying fits No less your memory and your wits) Keep their heads always in the score: You, steeped in lyric and symphonic lore, Could keep the score entirely in your head.

No more, alas! at least in this our isle, Will rash trombonists, if they miss a cue, Be grievously cast down By the great Doctor's frown; Or if they give it, prompt and clear and true, Be raised to rapture by the Doctor's smile. No more will our orchestral players find A long rehearsal's tedious grind Enlivened by the sudden lightning flash Of humorous rebuke, or feel the lash Of satire stinging in some mordant phrase,* Or smite the stars uplifted by your frugal praise.

And yet, while tempering your rule With seasonable mirth, you never played the fool.

Mindful of dignity in ev'ry action—

Unlike those virtuosi who on outre vesture Rely, or on extravagance of gesture,

Or mainly on capillary attraction—

You let no affectation mar your mien Grand, leonine, serene; But swayed your hearers by the triple dower Of sympathy, simplicity, and power. C. L. G.