The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-04-04
KATHLEEN MAVOURNBBN
The Man Who Wrote the rlagic
Music of This Song Is Dy-
ing in Want.
Strange Career of a Gifted One
Whom the World Has
Forgotten.
Twenty-Five Dollars Paid the
Composer While Others riade
Their Fortunes.

! Composer While Others riade
Their Fortunes.
I Frederick Nicholas Crouch the com
poser Of Kathleen Mavourneen," is dying
in Baltimore. The old mans mind i:
gone and he raves about the coronation
of William w., the cupidity of music
publishers, his old triumpils and troubles
have been moved to tears by the recital
of his famous song will be amazed to
learn that its composer is alive. For it is
an old song and is involuntarily referred
back to years long since dead. But it was
a classic before it had become old, and will
remain a living power in the realm OF
| feeling until human nature is essentially
changed.
A writer on music says in book that
the melody of "sally in Our Alley writ
ten early in the last century by the i'll
starred Henry Carey, is the divinest music
that ever passed from the infinite
through the brain of musician. But
those who loved the exquisite pathos-
| meltingness is the word for it-of Irish
music, will never admit that Carey, in his
one song, ever approached Crouch i'll
his.
Not long ago Patti sang this song in
| London. and the next day the London pa
pers blazed with great editorials about
the beauty of the masterpiece and its alb
solute spiritual value to mankind. The
voice of Patti, the tenderness of the words
and the complete oneness of the senti-
ment in words and music set the 'netrop-
oils of the world on fire. The scene at the
theater was remarkable Men and women
with tears streaming down their faces aid
binding their eyes, and fell in contact
with some infinite, inscrutable force not
known to physicists and without name.
| In the glory of that brilliant scene no one
thought of the composer-or, say, no one
thought of him as a helpless old man, llv-
ing in almost squalor in back street OF
the American city.
Next day, too, the London Times SAID
that the composer had received as much
as f5 for his song. That is $25 in Amer
lean money. Milton got the same sum for
the manuscript of paradise Lost" But
who will contend that paradise Lost has
in it half the genius or divinity OF "kath-
leen Mavourneen?'' The poem itself was
not written by Mr.. Crouch. It was first
published in an English magazine. Elere
it was that Crouch saw it. That was IN
1897, when the musician was but l9 years
of age. The perfect rythm of the lines at
once fastened his attention, and the melo-
DIV grew upon the words as ne repeated
them in his mind. The melody was more
completely evolved soon afterward, While
one day he was riding about the grounds
of the Duke of Bedfords castle in Engley.
These are the verses:
Kathleen Mavourneen! The gray dawn
is breaking,
The horn of the hunter is heard on the
hill;
The lark from her light wing the bright
dew is shaking
kathleen Mavourneen! What! Slumber-
ing still?
Oh, hast thou forgotten how soon we must
sever?
Oh. hast thou forgotten this day we
must part;
# NAV he for wears, and it may be forever
oh, why art thou silent, then, voice OF
my heart?
Kathleen Mavourneen! awake from thy
slumbers!
The blue mountains glow in the suns
golden light;
All! Where is the speel that once hung
on my numbers?
Arise in thy beauty, thou star Of my
night!
Mavourneen, Mavourneen, my sad tears
are falling
To think that from Erin. and thee
must part; w
II NAV be for years and it may be forever.
Then why art thou silent then, voice of
my heart!
Crouch wrote out his melody and Of
fered it to firm Of music sellers, who
paid him in hand just f5. They took the
niece and coined money with it, Edition
after edition was sold, and the song swept
over the world. The simple little poem
was translated into every tongue spoken
by civilized people, and it. with the Irish
melody that clothed it around, drew tears
from all the world. Fortunes were made
out Of the song by many publishers in
divers places, and the original buyers
sold the copyright by auction for s2,5a0,
after publishing many editions.
In. his younger years Crouch was well
known to the amatuers of music in Eng
land. Like Bayly, who wrote I'D BE a
Butterfly and 'eI'll Hang NY Harp on a
Weeping Willow Tree" Crouch was very
nn,,,itar in his day. And like Bayly,