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414

MOURNING - MURDER.

Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps
And thron'd eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls

The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow!

All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

Gather around these summits, as to show

How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below
BYRON'S Childe Harold.

Who first beholds the Alps, that mighty chain

-

Of mountains, stretching on from east to west,
Sc massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal,
As to belong rather to heaven than earth
But instantly receives into his soul

A sense, a feeling that he loses not

A something that informs him 't is a moment
Whence he may date henceforward and for ever.

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines,

ROGERS' Italy

In the soft light of your serenest skies;
From the broad highland regions, dark with pines,
Fair as the hills of paradise, ye rise!

And lo! the Catskills print the distant sky,

W. C. BRYANT,

And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven,
So softly blending, that the cheated eye

Forgets or which is earth or which is neaven.

MOURNING.-(See FUNERAL.)

T. S FAY

MURDER

(See ASSASSINATION.)

MUSIC SINGING.

415

MUSIC-SINGING.

Oh! it came over me like the sweet South,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.

SHAKSPEARE.

-As sweet and musical

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.

SHAKSPEARE.

The man that hath not music in himself,

And is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils —

Let no man trust him.

Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony.

Can any

mortal mixture of earth's mould

Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?

SHAKSPEARE.

MILTON.

MILTON'S Comus.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,

And lap it in Elysium.

MILTON'S Comus

Music the fiercest grief can charm,

And fate's severest rage disarm.

Music can soften pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please;

Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.

Music resembles poetry; in each

Are numerous graces which no methods teach,

And which a master-hand alone can reach.

POPE.

POPE'S Essay on Criticism.

416

MUSIC SINGING.

Even rage itself is cheer'd with music

It wakes a glad remembrance of our youth,
Calls back past joys, and warms us into transport.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, and bend the knotted oak.

ROWE

CONGREVE

Though cheerfulness and I have long been strangers,
Harmonious sounds are still delightful to me :
There's sure no passion in the human soul
But finds its food in music.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleas'd
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave.
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

LILLO

COWPER'S Task.

Sweet notes! they tell of former peace,
Of all that look'd so rapturous then ;
Now wither'd, lost-Oh! pray thee, cease,
I cannot hear those sounds again!

Music! Oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!

Why should feeling ever speak,

When thou canst breathe her soul so well?

Friendship's balmy words may pain,
Love's are e'en more false than they -

Oh! 'tis only music's strain

Can sweetly soothe, and not betray!

Her voice was like the warbling of a bird,
So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear.

MOORE.

MOORE.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

MUSIC-SINGING.

He hears, alas! no music of the spheres,
But, an unhallow'd, earthly sound of fiddling.

BYRON'S Don Juan

In fact he has no singing education,
An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow.

417

BYRON'S Don Juan.

The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bids the foe defiance ere they come.

BYRON'S Curse of Minerva.

The dying night-breeze harping o'er the hills,
Striking the strings of nature-rock and tree,
The best and earliest lyres of harmony,
With echo for their chorus.

Her deep and thrilling song

Seem'd with its piercing melody to reach

The soul, and in mysterious unison

BYRON'S Island.

Blend with all thoughts of gentleness and love.

The bird retains his silver note,

Though bondage chains his wing;

His song is not a happy one-
I'm saddest when I sing.

Voices of melting tenderness, that blend
With pure and gentle musings, till the soul,
Commingling with the melody, is borne,
Rapt and dissolv'd in ecstasy, to heaven.

SOUTHEY

J. H. BAYLY

J. G. PERCIVAL

Who loves not music still may pause to hark
Nature's free gladness hymning in the lark;-
As sings the bird, sings Lucy! all her art
A voice in which you listen to a heart.

Divine interpreter thou art, Oh Song!
To thee all secrets of all hearts belong!

The New Timon.

The New Timon.

418

MUSIC SINGING.

See to the desk Apollo's sons repair :

Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair;
In unison their various tones to tune,

Murmurs the hautboy; growls the hoarse bassoon ;
In soft vibrations sighs the whispering lute;
Twang goes the harpsichord; too-too, the flute;
Brays the loud trumpet; squeaks the fiddle sharp;
Winds the French-horn; and twangs the tingling harp.

Rejected Addresses.

Such sweet, such melting strains!

Their soft harmonious cadence rises now,
And swells in solemn grandeur to its height!
Now sinks to mellow notes now dies away ·

But leaves its thrilling memory on my ear!

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Methodist Protestant.

How sweetly sounds each mellow note

Beneath the moon's pale ray,
When dying zephyrs rise and float

Like lovers' sighs away!

MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

And, as thy bright lips sung, they caught

So beautiful a ray,

That, as I gaz'd, I almost thought

The spirit of thy lay

Had left, while melting in the air,
Its sweet expression painted there.

MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

Orpheus himself might hang his lyre
Upon the willows after this,
Nor henceforth impiously aspire

To lap the senses all in bliss ;
For he, who heard that thrilling strain,
Would find all other music vain.

J. T. WATSON.

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