Strings and Stately Chords

"...at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, and one knew, as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte, that June at last was here. One member of the company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to life and love..."

-Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Proserpine

"...Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an overhanging rock, on the other a chesnut wood. Etna at a distance. Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe. Pros. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest Under the shadow of that hanging cave And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank, And as I twine a wreathe tell once again The combat of the Titans and the Gods; Or how the Python fell beneath the dart Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne’s change,— That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves Now shade her lover’s brow. And I the while Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair. But without thee, the plain I think is vacant, Its blossoms fade,—its tall fresh grasses droop, Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;— Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine..."

-Mary Shelley, Proserpine




Not sure if Mary Shelley's Proserpine has been performed. (The work was "discovered" after her death) Below is the Ouverture of Jean Baptiste Lully's "Proserpine", from 1680.

Mighty Harmonies

 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

-Percy Shelley