Music

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled.

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora.

No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart.

A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.

The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.

I sing as the bird sings That lives in the boughs. 2

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleas’d With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave: Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

Sound the trumpets; beat the drums… Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.

The trumpet shall be heard on high The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky!

The trumpet’s loud clangor Excites us to arms.

The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music’s power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

The angel ended, and in Adam’s ear So charming left his voice that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fix’d to hear.

Their rising all at once was as the sound Of thunder heard remote.

Anon they move In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders.

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds: At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell’s concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.

Fill’d the air with barbarous dissonance.

How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns.