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

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