They leave, and speed on nightly embassy To visit earthly chambers,-and for whom? Yea, both for souls who God's forbearance try,

And those that seek his help, and for his mercy sigh.

XLVIII.

TO THE CLOUDS.

ARMY of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops
Ascending from behind the motionless brow
Of that tall rock, as from a hidden world,
O whither with such eagerness of speed?
What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the
gale

Companions, fear ye to be left behind,
Or racing o'er your blue ethereal field'
Contend ye with each other? of the sea
Children, thus post ye over vale and height
To sink upon your mother's lap-and rest?
Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine
eyes

Beheld in your impetuous march the like

And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares

Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds

Aërial, upon due migration bound

To milder climes; or rather do ye urge
In caravan your hasty pilgrimage

To pause at last on more aspiring heights
Than these, and utter your devotion there
With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubi-
lant,

And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun,

Be present at his setting; or the pomp Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand

Poising your splendors high above the heads

Of worshippers kneeling to their up risen

God?

Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed?

Speak, silent creatures.-They are gone, are fled,

Buried together in yon gloomy mass

That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright

And vacant doth the region which they thronged

Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting Down to the unapproachable abyss,

Down to that hidden gulf from which they

rose

To vanish-fleet as days and months and years,

Fleet as the generations of mankind, Power, glory, empire, as the world itself, The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be.

But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees,

And see! a bright precursor to a train Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock That sullenly refuses to partake

Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life Invisible, the long procession moves Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale Which they are entering, welcome to mine

eye

That sees them, to my soul that owns in them,

And in the bosom of the firmament
O'er which they move, wherein they are
contained,

A type of her capacious self and all
Her restless progeny.

A humble walk
Here is my body doomed to tread, this path,
A little hoary line and faintly traced,
Work, shall we call it, of the Shepherd's
foot

Or of his flock?-joint vestige of them both. I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts Admit no bondage and my words have wings.

Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, To accompany the verse? The mountain blast

Shall be our hand of music; he shall sweep The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake.

And search the fibres of the caves, and they Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds, And the wind loves them, and the gentle gales

Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn With annual verdure, and revive the woods, And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers

Love them; and every idle breeze of air Bends to the favorite burthen. Moon and

stars

Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds

Watch also, shifting peaceably their place Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie,

As if some Protean art the change had wrought,

In listless quiet o'er the ethereal deep
Scattered, a Cyclades of various shapes
And all degrees of beauty. O ye Light-
nings!

Ye are their perilous offspring; and the
Sun-

Source inexhaustible of life and joy, And type of man's far-darting reason, therefore

In old time worshipped as the god of verse, A blazing intellectual deity

Loves his own glory in their looks, and

Whom Sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they

Through India's spicy regions wing their

way,

Might bow to as their Lord. What character,

O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,
Of all thy feathered progeny

Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?
So richly decked in variegated down,
Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy
brown,

Tints softly with each other blended,
Hues doubtfully begun and ended;
Or intershooting, and to sight
Lost and recovered, as the rays of light
Glance on the conscious plumes touched
here and there?

Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life

Began the pencil's strife,

O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare.

A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong

Gave the first impulse to the Poet's song;
But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
A juster judgment from a calmer view;
And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
Thankfully took an effort that was meant
Not with God's bounty, Nature's love, to
vie,

Or made with hope to please that inward

The Mother-her thou must have seen,
In spirit, ere she came
To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;
An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give―
Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,
That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow
The smooth transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within;
The grace of parting Infancy

By blushes yet untamed;
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely Sisters still and sweet

As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride:
Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,
Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite
Of poverty and wrong,
Doth here preserve a living light,

From Hebrew fountains sprung;
That gives this ragged group to cast
Around the dell a gleam
Of Palestine, of glory past,
And proud Jerusalem!

1828,

LI.

ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

ARGUMENT.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined with 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) realized, in some degree, by the representation of al sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator.-(Last Stanza) the destruction cf earth and the pian etary system-the survival of audible har mony, and its support in the Divine Nature as revealed in Holy Writ.

I.

Try 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;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,

And requiems answered by the pulse that beats

Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

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.
IV.

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 coral 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.

V.

When' civic renovation

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!

Incitements of a battle-day,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plume. less heads?

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.

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,
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!

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!

By one pervading spirit

Of tones and numbers all things are con trolled,

As sages taught, where faith was found to merit

Initiation in that mystery old.

The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still

As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill

With everlasting harmony;

The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their
round;

Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

XIII.

Break forth into thanksgiving,

Ye banded instruments of wind and chords;
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of
words!

Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,

Nor mute the forest hum of noon;
Thou too be heard, lune eagle ! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim