some other element than profound design.
For any form of song or verse that enshrines the spirit of a people and
is tried in the forge of ages of tradition, lives on more surely than
the fairest art of individual poet.

The stream is the great figure, rising from small sources in playful
flutes, with light spray of harp and

[Music: _Allegro commodo non agitato_
_lusingando_
(Flute with chord of _pizz._ strings)]

strings. The first brook is joined by another (in clarinets) from a new
direction. Soon grows the number and the rustle of confluent waters. The
motion of the strings is wavelike, of a broader flow, though underneath
we scan the several lesser currents. Above floats now the simple, happy
song, that expands

[Music: _dolce_
(Reeds and horns with waving strings and stroke of triangle)]

with the stream and at last reaches a glad, sunny major.

Still to the sound of flowing waters comes the forest hunt, with all the
sport of trumpets and other brass.

It is descriptive music, tonal painting if you will; but the color is
local or national. The strokes are not so much of events or scenes as of
a popular humor and character, which we must feel with small stress of
each event. The blowing of trumpets, the purling of streams, the swaying
of trees, in primal figures, all breathe the spirit of Bohemia.

The hunt dies away; emerging from the forest the jolly sounds greet us
of a peasant wedding. The

[Music: _Tempo moderato_
(Reeds and strings)]

parade reaches the church in high festivity and slowly vanishes to
tinkling bells.

Night has fallen; in shifted scene the stream is sparkling in the
moonlight still to the quiet sweet harmonies. But this is all background
for a dance of nymphs, while a dulcet, sustained song sounds through the
night. At last, to the golden horns a faintest harmony is added of
deeper brass. Still very softly, the brass strike a quicker phrase and
we seem to hear the hushed chorus of hunt with the call of trumpets, as
the other brass lead in a new verse that grows lustier with the livelier
song and dance, till--with a flash we are alone with the running stream
with which the dance of nymphs has somehow merged.

On it goes, in happy, ever more masterful course, a symbol of the
nation's career, surging in bright major and for a moment quieting
before the mighty Rapids of St. Johann. Here the song of the stream is
nearly lost in the rush of eddies and the strife of big currents, wi