ON THE POWER OF SOUND Was for belief no dream : *-thy skill, Arion ! 209 135 Where men were monsters.† A last grace he craves, So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, 140 X The pipe of Pan, to shepherds Couched in the shadow of Mænalian pines, § This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned.¶ 145 150 * The fable of Amphion moving stones and raising the walls of Thebes by his melody is explained by supposing him gifted with an eloquence and power of persuasion that roused the savage people to rise and build the town of Thebes.-ED. The story of Arion, lyric poet and musician of Lesbos, was that having gone into Italy, settled there, and grown rich, he wished to revisit his native country, taking some of his fortune with him. The sailors of the ship determined to murder him, and steal his treasure. He asked, as a last favour, that he might play a tune on his lyre. As soon as he began he attracted the creatures of the deep, and leaping into the sea, one of the dolphins carried him, lyre in hand, to the shore.-ED. Compare A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 11. scene i. I. 150.-ED. § Mænalus, a mountain in Arcadia, sacred to Pan, covered with pine trees, a favourite haunt of shepherds.-See Virgil, Eclogues, viii. 24; Georgics, i. 17; Ovid, Metamorphoses, i. 216.-ED. Compare Gray's Progress of Poesy, ll. 33-35.-Ed. In his expedition to the East, Bacchus was clothed in a panther's skin. He was accompanied by all the Satyrs, and by Silenus crowned with flowers and almost always intoxicated.-ED. VOL. VII P To life, to life give back thine ear: Ye who are longing to be rid Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear The convict's summons in the steeple's knell ; For terror, joy, or pity, XI Vast is the compass and the swell of notes: Might tempt an angel to descend, 155 160 165 While hovering o'er the moonlight vale. Ye wandering Utterances, ‡ has earth no scheme, 170 Powers that survive but in the faintest dream 1 Of memory?—O that ye2 might stoop to bear * I have been unable to trace this quotation.-ED. + The nightingale.—ED. Compare To the Cuckoo, vol. ii. p. 289— A wandering Voice. ED. 175 ON THE POWER OF SOUND 211 By one pervading spirit XII Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still Innumerable voices fill The towering headlands, crowned with mist, 180 With everlasting harmony; 185 Strains that support the Seasons in their round; XIII Break forth into thanksgiving, Ye banded instruments of wind and chords; 1 1835. There is a world of spirit, By tones and numbers guided and controlled; MS. copy by Dorothy Wordsworth. * The fundamental idea, both in the intellectual and moral philosophy of the Pythagoreans, was that of harmony or proportion. Their natural science or cosmology was dominated by the same idea, that as the world and all spheres within the universe were constructed symmetrically, and moved around a central focus, the forms and the proportions of things were best expressed by number. All good was due to the principle of order; all evil to disorder. In accordance with the mathematical conception of the universe which ruled the Pythagoreans, justice was equality (ioórns), that is to say it consisted in each one receiving equally according to his deserts. Friendship too was equality of feeling and relationship; harmony being the radical idea, alike in the ethics and in the cosmology of the school.-ED. Compare Keats, in a letter to his friend Bailey, in 1817: "The great elements we know of are no mean comforters; the open sky sits upon our senses like a sapphire crown; the air is our robe of state; the earth is our throne; and the sea a mighty minstrel playing before it."-ED. Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,* Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words! Nor mute the forest hum of noon; Thou too be heard, lone eagle! † freed Of joy, that from her utmost walls The six-days' Work, ‡ by flaming Seraphim Shouting through one valley calls, All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep 195 200 205 XIV A Voice to Light gave Being ; § To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler ; A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing, And sweep away life's visionary stir; The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride, To archangelic lips applied, The grave shall open, quench the stars.|| * Compare The Excursion, book iv. l. 1163 (vol. v. p. 188)— choral song, or burst Sublime of instrumental harmony, To glorify the Eternal! + See the Fenwick note prefixed to this poem.-ED. Genesis i.-ED. ED. 210 215 §"And God said, Let there be light, and there was light" (Genesis i. 3). ED. Corinthians xv. 52.-ED. ¶ Compare Ode, Intimations of Immortality, in stanza ix.— Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence. ED. ON THE POWER OF SOUND Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears, Tempered into rapturous strife, 213 220 Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust * St. Luke xxi. 33.-ED. |