Composed 1828.

INCIDENT AT BRUGÈS.

Published 1835.

IN Brugès town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;
Where, without hurry, noiseless feet,
The grass-grown pavement tread.
There heard we, halting in the shade
Flung from a Convent-tower,

A harp that tuneful prelude made
To a voice like bird in bower.

The measure, simple truth to tell,
Was fit for some gay throng;
Though from the same grim turret fell
The shadow and the song.

When silent were both voice and chords,
The strain seemed doubly dear,
Yea passing sweet,-for English words
Had dropped upon the ear.

It was a breezy hour of eve;
And pinnacle and spire

Quivered, and seemed almost to heave,
Clothed with innocuous fire;

But, where we stood, the setting sun
Showed little of his state;

And, if the glory reached the Nun,
'Twas through an iron grate.

Not always is the heart unwise,
Nor pity idly born,

If even a passing Stranger sighs
For them who do not mourn.
Sad is thy doom, imprisoned dove,
Captive, whoe'er thou be!

Oh! what is beauty, what is love,

And opening life to thee?

Such feeling pressed upon my soul,
A feeling sanctified

By one soft trickling tear that stole
From the Maiden at my side;
Less tribute could she pay than this,
Borne gaily o'er the sea,

Fresh from the beauty and the bliss
Of English liberty?

ON THE POWER Of sound.

Composed 1828.

1.

Published 1835.

THY functions are ethereal,

As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aërial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;

And shrieks, that revel in abuse

Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose

The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile

Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

The headlong streams and fountains

Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand flowers.
That roar, the prowling lion's Here I am,

How fearful to the desert wide!

That bleat, how tender! of the dam

Calling a straggler to her side.

Shout, cuckoo !-let the vernal soul

Go with thee to the frozen zone;

Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll!
At the still hour to Mercy dear,

Mercy from her twilight throne

Listening to nun's faint throb of holy fear,

To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea,
Or widow's cottage-lullaby.

III.

Ye Voices, and ye Shadows

And Images of voice--to hound and horn
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn—
On with your pastime ! till the church-tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee ;
And milder echoes from their cells
Repeat the bridal symphony.
Then, or far earlier, let us rove

Where mists are breaking up or gone,
And from aloft look down into a cove
Besprinkled with a careless quire,
Happy milk-maids, one by one
Scattering a ditty each to her desire,

A liquid concert matchless by nice Art,
A stream as if from one full heart.

IV.

Blest be the song that brightens

The blind man's gloom, exalts the veteran's mirth ;

Unscorned the peasant's whistling breath, that lightens

His duteous toil of furrowing the green earth.

For the tired slave, Song lifts the languid oar,

And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore,

And mitigates the harshest clime.

Yon pilgrims see-in lagging file

They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,

And to their hope the distant shrine

Glisten with a livelier ray :

Nor friendless he, the prisoner of the mine,

Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest.

When civic renovation

V.

Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power
Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!

Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless
heads?-

Even She whose Lydian airs inspire

Peaceful striving, gentle play

Of timid hope and innocent desire

Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move
Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.

VI.

How oft along thy mazes,

Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod !
O Thou, through whom the temple rings with praises,
And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God,

Betray not by the cozenage of sense

Thy votaries, wooingly resigned

To a voluptuous influence

That taints the purer, better, mind;

But lead sick Fancy to a harp

That hath in noble tasks been tried;
And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp,
Soothe it into patience,-stay

The uplifted arm of Suicide;

And let some mood of thine in firm array

Knit every thought the impending issue needs, Ere martyr burns, or patriot bleeds!

VII.

As Conscience, to the centre

Of being, smites with irresistible pain,

So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter

The mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain, Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled

Convulsed as by a jarring din;

And then aghast, as at the world
Of reason partially let in

By concords winding with a sway
Terrible for sense and soul!

Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay.
Point not these mysteries to an Art

Lodged above the starry pole;

Pure modulations flowing from the heart

Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth With Order dwell, in endless youth?

VIII.

Oblivion may not cover

All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time.
Orphean Insight! truth's undaunted lover,
To the first leagues of tutored passion climb,
When Music deigned within this grosser sphere
Her subtle essence to enfold,

And voice and shell drew forth a tear

Softer than Nature's self could mould.