Florence Churchill Casebeer - XVI. Helena Modjeska lyrics

As we hear the nocturne rising once more, Flowing through unseen hands caressingly, The power of music rifts our apathy. Unvoiced longings, uncharted hopes--the store Youth yields to age, rise in the heart's deep core. Song phrasings linger still and certainly We follow up the strain and memory Recalls the way that love once sang its lore. Then the recurring cadence rose supreme Above life's jangled strains and so it grew To dominate the perfect arc, the heart Declared high festival, part real, part dream. And now there sounds a beat, the artist knew While faint and fainter sounds the singing part.