[166] “All soon will end for me. Return again, return one moment more, that I once more may see thy face and die.” In the Faust of M. Gounod we have Marguérite at the wheel. The French composer has treated this scene in a very touching and striking manner, especially on the words, “Il ne revient pas.” It is a beautiful page, but not so deep as Schubert.
[167] Childe Harold.
Reboul. Not here is perfect joy:
Suffering attends the soul’s delights,
Our notes of gladness have their sadness,
And every pleasure has its sighs.
[169] M. Gounod, in the duo of the first act of Romeo and Juliet, has found a chromatic ascendant which has some analogy with that of Schubert, but which, in the hands of the French composer, takes quite a different coloring. Sombre in La Jeune Religieuse, it is in Roméo et Juliette sparkling with light. In the line “Vois ces rayons jaloux dont l’orient se dore” (“Behold these envious beams which gild the east”) the brilliant ground-work added by M. Gounod contributes not a little to render the effect of light.
Gloom over all