The Lost Chord (Alfred James Caldicott)

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• (Posted 2023-09-29)  CPDL #75861:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-09-29).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 485 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Lost Chord
Composer: Alfred James Caldicott
Lyricist: Adelaide Anne Procter
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB, minor A, T, and B divisi
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1883 Patey & Willis
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

Seated one day at the Organ
I was weary, and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I knew not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord, divine
That came from the soul of the organ
And entered into mine.

It may be that Death’s bright Angel
Will speak in that chord again;
It may be, that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.