Ill Tidings

(THE STUDIO CONCERT) IN the long studio from whose towering walls Calm Pheidias beams, and Angelo appalls, Eager the listening, downcast faces throng While violins their piercing tones prolong. At times I know not if I see, or hear, Yon statue's smile, or some not sorrowing tear Down-falling on the surface of the stream That music pours across my waking dream. Ah, is it then a dream that while repeat Those chords, like strokes of silver-shod light feet, And the great Master's music marches on— I hear the horses of the Parthenon? ........ But all to-day seems vague, unreal, far, With fear and discord in the dearest strain, For 'neath yon slowly-sinking western star One that I love lies on her bed of pain.