for Doctor Elisabeth Schwarzkopf-Legge in honour of her seventieth birthday
​
a smile so meant to light the wax
an image stored by artful right
no mannered arc of sweetened sound
but truth
your own rewarded search
Walter by your side.

you taught us love
a simple task!
and gave the words their makers might
Schumann, Strauss and tortured Wolf
summoned forth in ghostly sounds:

all rage contained in bitten lines
(Elvira's call, Contessa's fall)
a fiery flame that haunts the stave
all choice in art an ancient grail.

"Die Zaubererin" we cried aloud
as each new record carved a stance

of grinning cats and buck tooth brats
one voice begat in girlish spite
then seared the heart with Mignon's cry

Bichette laughing through each tear
like Madeleine her heart declaring
how growing up and reaping pain
an artful yes may yet restrain
(still, sadness caught was not your way)

"Alice 'e mia" fizzed with life
and clucked her vowels italian style
a pleasant tease, quite viennese
that whoopsing sound we all encored:

poised, incandescent
born aloft on hard won gains
the connoisseurs delight
that soft german 's
prelude to a crisp dark name

companion, consoler, refusing fear
you are, of course, our better self
alive in the songs we most revere.
Hence, seventy years may pass once more
but all who know shall still refrain
"In dämmrigen Grüften" hear our praise!

Gar Jones – December 1985
​
http://hampsongfoundation.org/singing-on-singing-dame-elisabeth-schwarzkopf/