Winter Words, Op. 52: 5. The Choirmaster’s Burial

Lyrics

He often would ask us That, when he died After playing so many To their last rest If out of us any Should here abide And it would not task us We would with our lutes Play over him By his grave-brim The psalm he liked best— The one whose sense suits "Mount Ephraim" And perhaps we should seem To him, in death's dream Like the seraphim As soon as I knew That his spirit was gone I thought this his due And spoke thereupon "I think" said the vicar "A read service quicker That viols out-of-doors In these frosts and hoars That old-fashioned was Requires a fine day And it seems to me It had better not be." Hence, that afternoon Though never knew he That his wish could not be To get through it faster They buried the master Without any tune But t'was said that, when At the dead of next night The vicar looked out There struck on his ken Thronged roundabout Where the frost was graying The headstoned grass A band all in white Like the saints in church-glass Singing and playing The ancient stave By the choirmaster's grave Such the tenor man told When he had grown old