It is clear that these are the views of a composer who placed veracious declamation of the poetic idea very much to the front in his conception of the art of the song-writer. They explain in part, also, the fact that MacDowell himself wrote the words of many of his songs, though, quite characteristically, he did not avow the fact in the printed music. The verses of all the songs of op. 56, save one, op. 58, and op. 60 (the last three sets that he wrote), of the "Slumber Song" of op. 9, of "The Robin Sings in the Apple Tree," "Confidence," and "The West Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees" (op. 47), and of some of the choruses, were of his authorship. He enjoyed what he called "stringing words together," and most of his verses were written off-hand, with a facility which betrayed the marked gift for verbal expression which is apparent in his often admirably stated lectures. But his especial reason for writing the words for his songs was his difficulty hi finding texts which quite suited him. Many poems which he would have liked to set were, as he explained in the words I have quoted, full of snags in the way of unsingable words. And though it used to make him uncomfortable to do so, he often felt compelled for this reason to refuse much otherwise excellent poetry that was sent to him with the request that he use it for music. Some of the verse that he wrote for use in his songs is of uncommon quality--imaginative, distinguished in diction, and, above all, perfectly suited to musical utterance. Of uncommon quality, too, are some of the brief verses which he used as mottos for certain of his later piano pieces--as for the "Sea Pieces" and "New England Idyls."