A popular song from 1877
Words by Adelaide A. Proctor
Music by Arthur Sullivan
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Accompaniment by Benjamin R. Tubb:
Lyrics
- Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered 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 loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mine
- It may be that death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again;
It may be that only in heav’n
I shall hear that grand Amen;
It may be that death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again;
It may be that only in heav’n
I shall hear that grand Amen.
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: