They leave, and speed on nightly embassy To visit earthly chambers,-and for whom? Yea, both for souls who God's forbearance try, And those that seek his help, and for his mercy sigh. XLVIII. TO THE CLOUDS. ARMY of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops Companions, fear ye to be left behind, Beheld in your impetuous march the like And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds Aërial, upon due migration bound To milder climes; or rather do ye urge To pause at last on more aspiring heights And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun, Be present at his setting; or the pomp Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand Poising your splendors high above the heads Of worshippers kneeling to their up risen God? Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed? Speak, silent creatures.-They are gone, are fled, Buried together in yon gloomy mass That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright And vacant doth the region which they thronged Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting Down to the unapproachable abyss, Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose To vanish-fleet as days and months and years, Fleet as the generations of mankind, Power, glory, empire, as the world itself, The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be. But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees, And see! a bright precursor to a train Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock That sullenly refuses to partake Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life Invisible, the long procession moves Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale Which they are entering, welcome to mine eye That sees them, to my soul that owns in them, And in the bosom of the firmament A type of her capacious self and all A humble walk Or of his flock?-joint vestige of them both. I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts Admit no bondage and my words have wings. Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, To accompany the verse? The mountain blast Shall be our hand of music; he shall sweep The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake. And search the fibres of the caves, and they Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds, And the wind loves them, and the gentle gales Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn With annual verdure, and revive the woods, And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers Love them; and every idle breeze of air Bends to the favorite burthen. Moon and stars Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds Watch also, shifting peaceably their place Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie, As if some Protean art the change had wrought, In listless quiet o'er the ethereal deep Ye are their perilous offspring; and the 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 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, Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair? Tints softly with each other blended, Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life Began the pencil's strife, O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare. A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong Gave the first impulse to the Poet's song; Or made with hope to please that inward The Mother-her thou must have seen, Downcast, or shooting glances far, I see the dark-brown curls, the brow By blushes yet untamed; Two lovely Sisters still and sweet As flowers, stand side by side; Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite From Hebrew fountains sprung; 1828, LI. ON THE POWER OF SOUND. ARGUMENT. The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined with 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) realized, in some degree, by the representation of al sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator.-(Last Stanza) the destruction cf earth and the pian etary system-the survival of audible har mony, and its support in the Divine Nature as revealed in Holy Writ. I. Try 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; Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle, And requiems answered by the pulse that beats Devoutly, in life's last retreats! To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening Who, from a martial pageant, spreads A greeting give of measured glee; Blest be the song that brightens 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 They move; but soon the appointed way 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. V. When' civic renovation Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet Incitements of a battle-day, Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plume. less heads? Even she whose Lydian airs inspire Of timid hope and innocent desire VI. How oft along thy mazes, trod! O Thou, through whom the temple rings with praises, And blackening clouds in thunder speak of Betray not by the cozenage of sense And let some mood of thine in firm array Knit every thought the impending issue needs, Ere martyr burns, or patriot bleeds! The pipe of Pan, to shepherds That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines, Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear The convict's summons in the steeple's knell: "The vain distress-gun," from a leeward shore, Repeated-heard, and heard no more! By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are con trolled, 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, With everlasting harmony; The towering headlands, crowned with mist, Are delegates of harmony, and bear Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound. XIII. Break forth into thanksgiving, Ye banded instruments of wind and chords; Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead, Nor mute the forest hum of noon; |