Lyrics Winter Words, Op. 52: The Choirmaster's Burial - "The Tenor Man's Story" - Benjamin Britten , Sir Peter Pears

He often would ask us, that, when he died
After playing so many to their last rest
If out of us any should here abide
And it would not task us, we would with our lutes
Play over him, by his grave-brim, the psalm he liked best
The one whose sense suits Monti frame
And perhaps we should seem to him, in death's dream
Like the seraphim
As soon as I knew that his spirit was gone
I thought, "This his due," and spoke thereupon
"I think," said the vicar, "a red service quicker
Than viols out of doors in these frosts and hoarse
That old-fashioned way requires a fine day
And it seems to me it had better not be."
Hence, that afternoon
Though never knew he that his wish could not be
To get through it faster, they buried the master
Without any tune
But 'twas said that when, at the dead of next night
The vicar looked out, there struck on his kintrel
Round about, where the frost
Was greying the head-stoned grass
A band, all in white, like the saints in church-glass
Singing and playing the ancient stave
At the choir-master's grave
Such a tenor man told
When he had grown old