forgot,

Rooked1 in the spire, screams loud: the gloomy aisles,

35

Black-plastered, and hung round with shreds of 'scutcheons

And tattered coats of arms, send back the sound

Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults,

The mansions of the dead.-Roused from their slumbers,

In grim array the grisly spectres rise, 40 Grin horrible, and, obstinately sullen, Pass and repass, hushed as the foot of night.

Again the screech-owl shrieks: ungracious sound!

I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill.

Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms,

45

which were;

30

There lie interred the more illustrious

dead.

The wind is up: hark! how it howls! Methinks

Till now I never heard a sound so dreary: Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,

60

(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)

That tell in homely phrase who lie below. Sudden he starts, and hears, or thinks he hears,

1 cowering.

Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

WILLIAM COLLINS (1721–1759)

A SONG FROM SHAKESPEARE'S

CYMBELINE

70

5

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 10
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,

15

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale

May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!

1 embroidery.

20

THE PASSIONS

AN ODE FOR MUSIC

5

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,

10

15

80

First to the lively pipe his hand ad

dressed;

But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved

the best.

They would have thought, who heard

the strain,

85

They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids

Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Loved framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;

90

Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,

And he, admist his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

95

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 learned an all-commanding power, 100
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.

105

Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise as in that elder time,
Warm, energic,1 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, 110
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age,
Ev'n all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.

1 energetic.