‘The Caravan Song,’ is a Bohemian melody, and never yet was brought about a more forced, a more unhappy union of poetry and music. The verse plainly favoured some kind of common time, but is reluctantly wedded to three-four, and, like all ill-matched couples, these are very disagreeable when together, however pleasant when separated.
The nymphs then are joined by a band of mountaineers, one of whom, a minstrel youth,
‘Tells of the loves, the joys, the ills,
Of these wild children of the hills,’
in a ‘German air,’ lively, long, and rather deficient in novelty.
But ‘sad minstrelsy’ now breaks on the ears of the lovely party. It proceeds from a bark, bearing some who
‘———from an isle of mournful name,
From Missolonghi, last they came,’
and their dirge. ‘Thou art not dead,’ (the composer not named,) has at least simplicity to recommend it. Such sad sounds awaken sympathy in a ‘pensive maid,’ who sings, ‘Calm, as beneath its mother’s eyes,’ to an air possessing no little elegance, by Fiorillo, some phrases in which, however, are decidedly à la Mozart. This is also harmonized for two sopranos and base, and makes a terzetto that will invite attention to it.
Sadness soon yields to mirth, and in fancy’s eye a vision appears of two personages, who it is said are seldom found together. A song, ‘Love and Wisdom,’ tells their story; and we shall beg leave to repeat it in the poet’s own words, as a specimen of his verse and wit. The tale itself, we need hardly say, is of ancient date.