Ziphen Central

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

When memory, by her magic wand,
Brings back the scenes of bygone years,
How sad the pleasure, sweet the pain,
To gaze on them with smiles and tears!
Round one sweet spot I linger long,
None other can its station fill,
‘Mid all the shifting scenes of life,
My childhood’s home—I love it still.

There brightly shone the summer sun,
And gently sighed the summer breeze;
While birds sung gayly all day long
In the o’erhanging trees.
A thousand flowers perfumed the wind
That swept around that hallowed hill.
Yes, ‘mid the shifting scenes of life,
Sweet childhood’s home—I love it still.

But love’s soft whisper on my ear
Soon fell, and O, so strangely sweet
The whisper grew, until it won
My heart, and led my willing feet
Another home and other loves
My life and heart and hands now fill;
Yet backward, backward flies the mind.
Dear childhood’s home—I love it still.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

He was only a poor, lone old man, small, wrinkled, and bent; yet, directly after he moved into Hillsboro and set up his modest little sign, “Shoe and Boot-making and Mending,” the boys chose to invest him with a kind of mystery.  It is very likely that none of them had heard of “the little man in black,” the descendant of the renowned “Limpkin Fidilius;” certain it is they laid nothing weird or ghostly to his credit; and, instead of avoiding his little shop, they had a way of flocking into it at odd times and on rainy days to hear his odd tales of foreign lands, and thus it came about that those youngsters dreamed dreams and wove romances concerning the little bent shoemaker.

The boys were about all the company he had.  The preacher, looking out over his audience on Sundays, noted the shrunken figure of the shoemaker always in its place; but it never occurred to him to hunt up the little man in his home and converse with him.  The doctor, a good brother in the church, sometimes heard, in passing, a startling cough ring out from the shoeshop, and knew that at the cost of a few cents he could stop that cough and the pain it caused; but he was a practicing physician, whose business was to go when called for, and help when paid.  The deacons wondered what church the little old man belonged to; but when they heard the wild tales the boys told, they voted him an old cheat and passed by on the other side.  Sometimes the good sisters, on baking days, gatherings, etc., thought of the lonely old man, and thought of sending him a toothsome lunch; but they reasoned that it might cause him to be troublesome, so they let him alone.  Thus it happened that the boys were his only companions.

What strange tales he could tell!  Of frozen lands, of ice and snow, of storms and tempests; and, again, of tropical climes, where flowers bloomed, sluggish waters ran, and venomous serpents and bloodthirsty beasts hid in the jungles. (keep reading)

Words and music by Leila Morris (1900)
Recording from the Kleinwood singing
Cyber Hymnal entry

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
Lord, let in me Thy will be done.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer;
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

I’m tired of sin, footsore and weary,
The darksome path hath dreary grown,
But now a light has risen to cheer me;
I find in Thee my Star, my Sun.

Thy precious will, O conquering Savior,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul, a prisoned bird, set free.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The center of God’s will my home.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

A poor stonecutter, at his work one day,
Was grieved to see a rich man pass that way—
A rich man, in his costly garments dressed,
His proud heart beating ‘neath a silken vest.
“O, would that I were rich!” the poor man said,
“That I might take my ease on silken bed,
Or walk abroad in garments soft and fine,
And menial labor nevermore be mine.”
An angel heard him, and, in pity true,
Said: “Thus it shall be granted unto you.”

Joy thrilled his heart. A rich man now was he;
His gloating eyes his grand possessions see.
In ‘broidered, silken robes his limbs he dressed;
On soft and perfumed couch he took his rest;
But—lo!—on looking forth one balmy day,
He saw the mighty emperor pass that way,
The haughty ruler of a goodly land,
Whose word was law, whose nod a high command;
Slaves ran to wait on him at beck and call,
And held aloft the golden parasol.
“Ah!” said the man, and spurned his silken bed,
“I would that I were emperor, that o’er my head
That great and golden parasol be spread.”
While yet he breathed his bold, aspiring prayer,
“Thy wish is granted,” echoed in the air.
(keep reading)

Download sheet music — For piano and bowed psaltery

Continuing with my music transcription project, I now present you with the second piece of music I wrote, which I came up with while playing around on a cheap borrowed keyboard in the attic of our shop in October of 2006. I decided to name the minor tune “Fifth of November” because Guy Fawkes Day was right around the corner, a holiday celebrated in many English-speaking countries (yet not in mine, perhaps because of the anti-loyalist sympathies that were going around during the revolution).

For those of you who are knowledgeable in the ways of music, please do not scrutinize this piece too carefully. I know much more about music now than I did then, and consequently I now see the unintentional dissonance between the bowed psaltery and the piano in places. But the piece sounds decent, and you may hear a recording of it on another post of mine.

Hope you like it!