ARGUMENT

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 requiems answered by the pulse that beats

Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

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,

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.

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.

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!

Who, from a martial pageant, spreads

Incitements of a battle-day,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless 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.

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?

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.

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 Maenalian 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.

Ye wandering Utterances,has earth no scheme,

No scale of moral music — to unite

Powers that survive but in the faintest dream

Of memory? - O that yemight stoop to bear

Chains, such precious chains of sight

As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear!

O for a balance fit the truth to tell

Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!

By one pervading spirit

Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,

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.

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, lone 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

Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep

Shouting through one valley calls,

All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep

For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured

Into the ear of God, their Lord!

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,

Arm at its blast for deadly wars )

To archangelic lips applied,

The grave shall open, quench the stars.

O Silence! are Man's noisy years

No more than moments of thy life?

Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears,

With her smooth tones and discords just,

Tempered into rapturous strife,

Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust

And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay

Is in the WORD, that shall not pass away.