Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of Peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But oh! how alter'd was its sprghtlier tone, When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call, to Fawn and Dryad known! The oak-crown'd Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green:
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;
And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear.
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addresst; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain, They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess! why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learn'd an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd,
Can well recall what then it heard;
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording Sister's page-
"Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
That all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound,-
O bid our vain endeavours cease:
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!
Of all the arts beneath the heaven,
That man has found, or God has given,
None draws the soul so sweet away,
As Music's melting mystic lay;
Slight emblem of the bliss above,
It soothes the spirit all to love.
THE painter's hues stand visible before us
In power and beauty; we can trace the thoughts
Which are the workings of the poet's mind :
But Music is a mystery, and viewless
Even when present, and is less man's act,
And less within his order; for the hand
That can call forth the tones, yet cannot tell
Whither they go, or if they live or die
When floated once beyond his feeble ear;
And then, as if it were an unreal thing,
The wind will sweep from the neglected strings
As rich a swell as ever minstrel drew.
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside the helm, conducting it,
While all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever
Upon that many winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses.
O, LULL me, lull me, charming air !
My senses rock with wonder sweet!
Like snow on wool thy fallings are;
Soft, like a spirit's, are thy feet.
Grief who need fear
That hath an ear?
Down let him lie,
And slumbering die,
And change his soul for harmony.
EVER against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber, on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines* of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Golden Age of Harmony.
GOLDEN Age of Harmony,
Thou shalt from the Heaven descend,
Earth shall rise and welcome thee,
Man to man be angel-friend.
And the trumpets that blow when the battle's red star
Whelms the world with its blood as it bursts from afar ;
And the bugles that peal
To the crossing of steel,
When the Demon of Wrath drives his scythe-armed car,
And the war-drums that roll
In the shock of the battle,
And the death-bells that toll
O'er men slaughter'd like cattle;
And the death-smitten eyes that look up to the sun,
And see only the cannon-smoke darkling and dun;
And the lips that in dying hurl curses at those
Whom the Father made brethren, but evil made foes,
And the groans of the wounded, the moans of the dying,
The death-shot that scatters the ranks of the flying;
The wild, fierce hurrah, when the Fratricide host
Have driven their brethren to Hades red coast-
They shall cease, they shall cease,
Shall whiten the Earth, not with bones of the slain,
But with flowers for the garland, and sheaves for the wain.
* A small flat dish, used in the administration of the Eucharist.
Influence of Music.
ORPHEUS, with his lute, made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing;
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung-as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart-
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die!
THERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased,
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
The Poet's Song of the Soul.
THE human soul, like sweetest lyre,
Swept all night long by fairy fingers,
Impulses thoughts like jewel'd fire,
While slumber on the eyelids lingers
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