Ye are their perilous offspring; and the Sun-
Source inexhaustible of life and joy,

And type of man's far-darting reason, therefore
In old time worshipped as the god of verse,
A blazing intellectual deity-

Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers
Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood

Visions with all but beatific light

Enriched-too transient were they not renewed
From age to age, and did not, while we gaze
In silent rapture, credulous desire

Nourish the hope that memory lacks not power
To keep the treasure unimpaired.

Vain thought!

Yet why repine, created as we are
For joy and rest, albeit to find them only
Lodged in the bosom of eternal things?

A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong
Gave the first impulse to the Poet's song;
But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
A juster judgment from a calmer view;
And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
Thankfully took an effort that was meant
Not with God's bounty, Nature's love, to vie,
Or made with hope to please that inward eye
Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,
But to recal the truth by some faint trace
Of power ethereal and celestial grace,

That in the living Creature find on earth a place.

L.

XLIX.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE.

THE gentlest Poet, with free thoughts endowed,
And a true master of the glowing strain,
Might scan the narrow province with disdain
That to the Painter's skill is here allowed.
This, this the Bird of Paradise! disclaim
The daring thought, forget the name;

This the Sun's Bird, whom Glendoveers might

own

As no unworthy Partner in their flight
Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway
Of nether air's rude billows is unknown;
Whom Sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they
Through India's spicy regions wing their way,
Might bow to as their Lord. What character,
O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,
Of all thy feathered progeny

Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?

So richly decked in variegated down,

Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,

Hues doubtfully begun and ended;

Or intershooting, and to sight

Lost and recovered, as the rays of light

Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and

there?

Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life

Began the pencil's strife,

O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare.

A JEWISH FAMILY.

(IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE.)

GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen, With faithful memory left of things

To pencil dear and pen,

Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,
And all his majesty-

A studious forehead to incline
O'er this poor family.

The Mother-her thou must have seen,
In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;
An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give-
Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,
That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!

I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow,
The smooth transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within;

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony.-Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza).-The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot.-Origin of music, and its effect in early ages-how produced (to the middle of 10th Stanza).-The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally.-Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation.-(Stanza 12th). The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universe-imaginations consonant with such a theory.-Wish expressed (in 11th Stanza) realised, in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under

the form of thanksgiving to the Creator.-(Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary system-the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

I.

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!

II.

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

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.

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,

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.
Yet strenuous was the infant Age:
Art, daring because souls could feel,
Stirred nowhere but an urgent equipage
Of rapt imagination sped her march
Through the realms of woe and weal :
Hell to the lyre bowed low; the upper arch
Rejoiced that clamorous spell and magic verse
Her wan disasters could disperse.

IX.

The GIFT to king Amphion

That walled a city with its melody

Was for belief no dream:-thy skill, Arion!
Could humanise the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,

Leave for one chant;-the dulcet sound
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,
And listening dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides
A proud One docile as a managed horse;
And singing, while the accordant hand
Sweeps his harp, the Master rides ;

So shall he touch at length a friendly strand,
And he, with his preserver, shine star-bright
In memory, through silent night.

X.

The pipe of Pan, to shepherds

Couched in the shadow of Manalian pines,
Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards,
That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines,

How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence, and Silenus swang

This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned.
To life, to life give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid

Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;

The convict's summons in the steeple's knell ;

C The vain distress-gun,' from a leeward shore, Repeated-heard, and heard no more!

For terror, joy, or pity,

XI.

Vast is the compass and the swell of notes:
From the babe's first cry to voice of regal city,
Rolling a solemn sea-like bass, that floats
Far as the woodlands-with the trill to blend
Of that shy songstress, whose love-tale
Might tempt an angel to descend,

While hovering o'er the moonlight vale.

Ye wandering Utterances, has earth no scheme,
No scale of moral music-to unite
Powers that survive but in the faintest dream
Of memory?-O that ye might stoop to bear
Chains, such precious chains of sight

As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear!
O for a balance fit the truth to tell

Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!

By one pervading spirit

XII.

Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As sages taught, where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old.

The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill

With everlasting harmony;

The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know

That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round;
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

XIIL

Break forth into thanksgiving,

Ye banded instruments of wind and chords;
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,

Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon;

Thou too be heard, lone eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls,

All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
Into the ear of God, their Lord!

XIV.

A Voice to Light gave Being;

To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler;
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)

To archangelic lips applied,

The grave shall open, quench the stars.

O Silence! are Man's noisy years

No more than moments of thy life?

Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just,
Tempered into rapturous strife,

Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust
And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay
Is in the WORD, that shall not pass away.

1828.