A Quartet

(The Mikado at Cambridge)

Four singers with a Delphic seriousness

In harmony's kind problem play their part,

And I, who see and hear, think they express

Nature's best gift, the calm delight of art.

The fourfold music takes its twining ways,

And like a rich spring underwood embowers

Their careful theme, which from the tonal maze

Sudden as a nightingale all bright outflowers

When that dark lady bids a madrigal.

O sweet content, reward in deed, release

Of spirit here in imperfection shut;

Symmetry's answer given without a ‘but’;

Deep-moved I mark their choral masterpiece,

Their union in each swell and dying fall.

EDMUND BLUNDEN