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.
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, 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.
Blest be the song that brightens
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,
And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore,
And mitigates the harshest clime.
Yon pilgrims see-in lagging file
They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,
And to their hope the distant shrine
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.
Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast Piping through cave and battlemented tower; Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet That voice of Freedom, in its power Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet! Who, from a martial pageant, spreads Incitements of a battle-day,
Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless
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.
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
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!
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 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?
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.
The GIFT to king Amphion
That walled a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream:-thy skill, Arion! Could humanise the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves, Leave for one chant; -the dulcet sound Steals from the deck o'er willing waves, And listening dolphins gather round. Self-cast, as with a desperate course, 'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides A proud One docile as a managed horse;
And singing, while the accordant hand Sweeps his harp, the Master rides; So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, And he, with his preserver, shine star-bright In memory, through silent night.
The pipe of Pan, to shepherds Couched in the shadow of Mænalian pines, Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards, That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines, How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang! While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground In cadence, and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned. To life, to life give back thine ear: Ye who are longing to be rid
Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell Echoed from the coffin-lid;
The convict's summons in the steeple's knell; 'The vain distress-gun,' from a leeward shore, Repeated-heard, and heard no more!
For terror, joy, or pity,
Vast is the compass and the swell of notes: From the babe's first cry to voice of regal city, Rolling a solemn sea-like bass, that floats Far as the woodlands with the trill to blend Of that shy songstress, whose love-tale Might tempt an angel to descend, While hovering o'er the moonlight vale.
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