And this unsettled fire
Burn calmly, brightly, in immortal air.
One more then, one more strain;
To earthly joy and pain
A rich, and deep, and passionate farewell!
I pour each fervent thought,
With fear, hope, trembling, fraught,
Into the notes that o’er my dust shall swell.
[One of the peculiar features of the increased sensitiveness of her temperament at this time, was an awakened enthusiasm for music, which amounted to an absolute passion. “I do not think,” she wrote, “that I can bear the burden of my life without music for more than two or three days.” Yet, with sensibilities so exquisite as hers, this melomania was a source of far more pain than pleasure; it was so impossible for any earthly strains to approach that ideal and unattainable standard of perfection which existed within her mind, and which she has shadowed forth with a mournful energy in “Mozart’s Requiem.”
From time to time, however, she had enjoyment of music of a very high character, for much of which she was indebted to her acquaintance with Mr Lodge, the distinguished amateur, by whom so many of her songs have been set to melodies of infinite beauty and feeling. At a somewhat later period she derived much delight from the talents of Mr James Zengheer Herrmann, from whom, for a time, she took lessons, for the express purpose of studying, and fully understanding, the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, which had taken an extraordinary hold of her imagination. This fine composition was first brought to her notice by Mr Lodge, to whom she thus expressed her appreciation of it:—“It is quite impossible for me to tell you the impression I have received from that most spiritual music of Pergolesi’s, which really haunted me the whole night. How much I have to thank you for introducing me, in such a manner, to so new and glorious a world of musical thought and feeling!”—Memoir, p. 167-8.]