Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

way, or rather at the promontory of Fairhead, where a pair of eagles wheeled above our heads and darted off as if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun.-I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."-ED.

ARGUMENT

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;

5

ΙΟ

ON THE POWER OF SOUND

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,*
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

205

15

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. 20
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.

25

30

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,

* Compare Gray's Elegy, 1. 39.-ED.

35

40

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

45

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,

50

And bids it aptly fall, with chime

That beautifies the fairest shore,

And mitigates the harshest clime.

Yon pilgrims see—in lagging file

55

They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,

And to their hope the distant shrine

60

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.

V

When civic renovation

Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration

65

Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast

Piping through cave and battlemented tower;

Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet

70

That voice of Freedom, in its power

Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!

Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,

74

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads ?—

ON THE POWER OF SOUND

207

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.

80

VI

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

85

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,

Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled—
Convulsed as by a jarring din;

And then aghast, as at the world

* Compare L'Allegro, ll. 135-37

And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse.

The deception of the senses.-ED.

[blocks in formation]

ED.

[ocr errors]

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?

[merged small][ocr errors]

VIII

Oblivion may not cover

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.*

115

120

125

IX

The GIFT to king Amphion

That walled a city with its melody

130

* Orpheus, is search of his lost Eurydice, gained admittance with his lyre to the infernal regions. Pluto was charmed with his music, the wheel of Ixion stopped, the stone of Sisyphus stood still, Tantalus forgot his thirst, and the Furies relented, while Pluto and Proserpine consented to restore Eurydice. The sequel is well known.-ED.

« AnteriorContinuar »