Near and Far (Blunden)/A Quartet

by Edmund Blunden

A Quartet
("The Mikado" at Cambridge)

Four singers with a Delphic seriousnessIn harmony's kind problem play their part,And I, who see and hear, think they expressNature's best gift, the calm delight of art.The fourfold music takes its twining ways,And like a rich spring underwood embowersTheir careful theme, which from the tonal mazeSudden as a nightingale all bright out-flowersWhen that dark lady bids a madrigal.O sweet content, reward in deed, releaseOf spirit here in imperfection shut;Symmetry's answer given without a "but";Deep-moved I mark their choral masterpiece,Their union in each swell and dying fall.