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 : Not 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 crowds 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! 0 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!
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 ?
Oblivion
may
not cover
All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time.
Orphean Insight! truth's undaunted lover,
To the first leagues of tutor’d passion climb,
When Music deigned within this grosser sphere
Her subtle essence to unfold,
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 ber 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.
The Gift to king Amphion
That walled a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream :-Thy skill, Arion!
Could humanize the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last
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.
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;
“ The vain distress-guns," from a leeward shore,
Repeated-heard and heard no more!
For terror, joy, or pity,
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 ?-0 that ye might stoop to bear
Chains, such precious chains of sight
As labored minstrelsies through ages wear !
O for a balance fit the truth to tell,
Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!
By one pervading spirit,
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.
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
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