Prelude "Shadows of shadows passing It is now 1831 and as always I am absorbed with a delicate thought It is how poetry has indefinite sensations to which end music is inessential Since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception, music when combined with a pleasurable idea, i s poetry. Music without the idea is simply music Without music or an intriguing idea colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcase home becomes catacomb and the dead are but for a moment motionless. "