His erown of weeds, but could not even sustain OLD ABBEYS Monastic Domes! following my downward way, Untouch'd by due regret I mark'd your fall 1 Now, ruin, beanty, ancient stillness, all Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay On our past selves in life's declining day: For as, by discipline of Time made wise, We learn to tolerate th' infirmities And fanlts of others, — gently as he may, So with our own the mild Instructor deals, Teaching us to forget them or forgive. Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill, Why should we break Time's charitable seals? Once ye were holy, ye are holy still; Your spirit freely let me drink, and livel CATHEDRALS, ETC. Open your gates, ye everlasting Piles! Types of the spiritual Church which God hath rearM: Not loth we quit the newly-hallow'd sward And humble altar, 'mid your sumptuous aisles To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles, Or down the nave to pace in motion slow; Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow And mount, at every step, with living wiles Instinct, — to rouse the heart and lead the will By a bright ladder to the world above. Open your gates, ye Monuments of love Divine! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill! Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear! INSIDE OP KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE. Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd — Albeit labouring for a scanty band Of white-robed Scholars only — this immense And glorious Work of fine intelligence! Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more : So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering, — and wandering on as loth to die; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality. THE SAME. What awful perspective ! while from our sight CONTINUED. They dreamt not of a perishable home ON THE POWER OP SOUND. 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.— The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot. — Origin of music, ami its efl'cct in early ages. —The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally. — Wish uttered that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation. — 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, realised in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator. — The destruction of earth and the planetary system — the survival of andible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ. Thy functions are ethereal, As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind, Organ of vision! And a Spirit aerial 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 ; Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle, And requicms answer'd by the pulse that beats Devoutly, in life's last retreats!i 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. That roar, the prowling lion's Here I am, IIo\v 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 lofticst perch, lone bell-bird, toll I At the still hour to Mercy dear, Mercy from her twilight throne 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 Eepeat the bridal symphony. Then, or far earlier, let us rove Where mists are breaking np 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 matehless 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 Unscorn'd the peasant's whistling breath, that ligh Ob 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. You pilgrims see, — in lagging file They move; but soon th' 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. When civic renovation Who, from a martial pageant, spreads Incitements of a battle-day, Thrilling th' unweapon'd erowd with plumeless heads?— Even She2 whose Lydiau airs inspire Peaceful striving, gentle play Of timid hope and innocent desire Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move Faun'd 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 resign'd 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 Th' uplifted arm of Suicide ; And let some mood of thine in firm array Knit every thought th' 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 vanlts of the dull idiot's brain, Transmute him to a wreteh from quiet hurl'd, — 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, Beanty, Truth With Order dwell, in endless youth? 3 The allusion is to Sappho, the famous Greek poetess, whom Woi !lsworth else where speaks of as " The Lesbian Maid." Her airs are culled L.ndinn with referonct to the ancient Greek modes or keys, which were derived from Lydia, and in whick 'Ve uiusic was of a pathetic ami melting character. See page lid, note 1. |