WILLIAM SCHUYLER.
Words used by permission of Copeland and Day.
Copyright, 1897, by Wm. Schuyler.
There was, before me,
Mile upon mile of snow, ice, burning sand.
And yet I could look beyond all this,
To a place of infinite beauty;
And I could see the loveliness of her
Who walked in the shade of the trees.
When I gazed,
All was lost
But this place of beauty and her
When I gazed,
And in my gazing, desired
Then came again
Mile upon mile,
Of snow, ice, burning sand, burning sand.
FROM WM. SCHUYLER'S "BLACK RIDERS."
Schuyler was born in St. Louis, May 4, 1855, and music has been his livelihood. He is largely self-taught, and has composed some fifty pieces for the piano, a hundred and fifty songs, a few works for violin, viola, and 'cello, and two short trios.
In his setting of these lines of Crane's, Schuyler has attacked a difficult problem in an ideal manner. To three of the short poems he has given a sense of epic vastitude, and to two of them he has given a tantalizing mysticism. The songs, which have been published privately, should be reproduced for the wide circulation they deserve.
Another writer of small songs displaying unusual individuality is George Clifford Vieh, who was born in St. Louis and studied there under Victor Ehling. In 1889, he went to Vienna for three years, studying under Bruckner, Robert Fuchs, and Dachs. He graduated with the silver medal there, and returned to St. Louis, where he has since lived as a teacher and pianist.