THE LOST CHORD
(Arthur Sullivan / Adelaide Anne Proctor)

Enrico Caruso - 1912
Alma Gluck - 1918
John McCormack - 1923
Nelson Eddy - 1940
John Aler - 1995
Robert White - 1995

Also recorded by:
Dame Clara Butt; St. James Choir; Phillip McCann:
Mormon Tabernacle Choir; River City Brass Band;
Robert Shaw Chorale; Sellers Engineering Band.


Seated one day at the organ
I was weary and ill at ease
And my fingers wander'd idly over the noisy keys
I know not what I was playing
Or what I was dreaming then
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great amen
Like the sound of a great amen

It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an angel's psalm
And it lay on my fever'd spirit
With a touch of infinite calm
It quieted pain and sorrow
Like love overcoming strife,
It seem'd the harmonious echo from our discordant life
It link'd all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace, and trembled away into silence
As if it were loath to cease

I have sought, but I seek vainly
That one lost chord divine
Which came from the soul of the organ
And enter'd into mine
It may be death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again
It maybe that only in heav'n
I shall hear that grand amen