[Music:  (Trombones with lower 8ve) Marcato]

maze of furious charges and cries, till the shrill trumpet and the stentorian trombone strike the full call in antiphonal song.  The tempest increases with a renewed charge of the strings, and now the more distant calls have a slower sweep.  Later the battle song is in the basses,—­again in clashing basses and trebles; nearer strike the broad sweeping calls.

Suddenly over the hushed motion in soothing harmonies sings the hymn in pious choir of all the brass.  Then the gathering speed and volume is merged in a majestic tread as of ordered array (Maestoso assai; Andante); a brief spirited prelude of martial motives is answered by the soft religious strains of the organ on the line of the hymn: 

    “Crux fidelis, inter omnes
    Arbor una nobilis,
    Nulla silva talem profert
    Fronde, flore, germine. 
    Dulce lignum, dulces clavos,
    Dulce pondus sustinet."[A]

[Footnote A: 

    Faithful cross, among the trees
    Thou the noblest of them all! 
    Forest ne’er doth grow a like
    In leaf, in flower or in seed. 
    Blessed wood and blessed nails,
    Blessed burden that it bears!]

As in solemn liturgy come the answering phrases of the organ and the big chorus in martial tread.  As the hymn winds its further course, violins entwine about the harmonies.  The last line ends in expressive strain and warm line of new major tone,—­echoed in interluding organ and violins.

Suddenly a strict, solemn tread, with sharp stress of violins, brings a new song of the choral.  Strings alone play here “with pious expression”; gradually reeds add support and ornament.  A lingering phrase ascends on celestial harmonies.  With a stern shock the plain hymn strikes in the reed, against a rapid course of strings, with fateful tread.  In interlude sound the battle-cries of yore.  Again the hymn ends in the expressive cadence, though now it grows to a height of power.

Here a former figure (the first motive of the battle) reappears in a new guise of bright major,[A] in full, spirited stride, and leads once more to a blast of the hymn, with organ and all, the air in unison of trumpets and all the wood.  The expressive cadence merges into a last fanfare of battle, followed by a strain of hymns and with reverberating Amens, where the organ predominates and holds long after all other sounds have ceased.

[Footnote A:  In the whole tonality we may see the “meteoric and solar light” of which the composer speaks in the letter quoted above.]

CHAPTER VI

THE SYMPHONIC POEMS OF SAINT-SAENS

There is something charming and even ideal in a complete versatility, quite apart from the depth of the separate poems, where there is a never-failing touch of grace and of distinction.  The Philip Sydneys are quite as important as the Miltons, perhaps they are as great.  Some poets seem to achieve an expression in a certain cyclic or sporadic career of their fancy, touching on this or that form, illuminating with an elusive light the various corners of the garden.  Their individual expression lies in the ensemble of these touches, rather than in a single profound revelation.