And the free maids that weave their thread with And stole upon the air, that even silence bone,
This music crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With its sweet air.
Preposterous ass! that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain'd!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man,
After his studies, or his usual pain?
Was took ere she was 'ware, and wish'd she might
Deny her nature and be never more,
Still to be so displac'd. I was all car,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
Often our seers and poets have confest,
That music's force can tame the furious breast;
Can make the wolf, or foaming boar, restrain
His rage; the lion drop his crested mane,
Attentive to the song; the lynx forget
His wrath to man, and lick the minstrel's feet.
Arc wc, alas! less savage yet than these?
Shaks. Taming the Shrew. Else music, sure, may human cares appease.
Prior's Soloman
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends:
Unless some dull and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones;
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Once I was upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Music so softens and disarms the mind,
That not an arrow does resistance find.
Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize,
And acts herself the triumph of her eyes.
So Nero once, with harp in hand, survey'd
His flaming Rome, and as it burn'd he play'd.
I'll think no more on 't;
(ve me some music; look that it be sad.
E'en rage itself is cheer'd with music:
It wakes a glad remembrance of our youth,
Calls back past joys, and warms us into transport.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.
Each sound too here to languishment inclin'd,
Lull'd the weak bosom, and induced ease.
Aerial music in the warbling wind,
At distance rising oft, by small degrees
Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the trees
It hung, and breath'd such soul-dissolving airs,
As did, alas! with soft perdition please:
Entangl'd deep in its enchanting snares,
The list'ning heart forgot all duties and all cares.
Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Ah me! what hand can touch the string so fine?
Who up the lofty diapason roll
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,
Then let them down again into the soul?
Now rising love they fann'd, now pleasing dole
They breath'd in tender musings through the
As when seraphic hands a hymn impart :
Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art.
Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Ask me no more, whither does haste
The nightingale, when May is past,
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.
Parent of actions good and brave!
How vice it tames?
Music nas coarms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, and bend the knotted oak.
Congreve's Mourning Bride.
And holds proud empire o'er the grave!
Though cheerfulness and I have long been | Yet what is music, and the blended power
Harmonious sounds are still delightful to me, There's sure no passion in the human soul, But finds its food in music.
By music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low:
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft persuasive voice applics;
Or, when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enliv'ning airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds,
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouses from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning envy drops her snakes;
Intestine wars no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions hear away their rage.
O music, sphere descended maid, Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!
Music resembles poetry: in cach
Are nameless graces, which no method teach,
And which a master's hand alone can reach!
Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn!
Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt
Pope. Of, solitude and melancholy born?
She told me of a mermaid once, that lay
Along the scoop'd side of a hollow wave,
Singing such dulcet music, that the car,
Like a woo'd damsel, trembled with delight.
Sir A. Hunt's Julian.
Perhaps the breath of music
May prove more cloquent than my poor words:
It is the medicine of the breaking heart.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet! now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on.
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd, the car is pleas'd
With melting airs of martial, brisk or grave.
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
Cowper's Task.
He needs not woo the muse; he is her scorn;
The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine;
Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn,
And delve for life in mammon's dirty mine;
Sneak with the scoundrel fox or grunt with glutton
swine.
Beattie's Minstrel
I was a wild and wayward boy,
My childhood scorn'd each childish toy.
Retir'd from all, reserv'd, and coy,
To musing prone,
I woo'd my solitary joy,
My harp alone.
Ambition's dream I've seen depart,
Have read of penury the smart,
Have felt of love the venom'd dart
When hope was flown:
Yet rests one solace to my heart,—
My harp alone.
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostrils to the wind.
Listed before, aside, behind;
And quak'd among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound so dull and stern.
Like that wild narp, nose agic
Is waken'd by the winds alone.
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
There is a charm, a power, that sways the breast;
Bids every passion revel or be still;
Inspires with rage, or all our cares dissolves;
Can soothe distraction, and almost despair-
That power is music.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison and of plague.
And melt in the heart as instantly!
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind, over the water blowing,
Ruffles the wave, but sweetens it too!
But the gentlest of all, are those sounds full of feeling,
That soft from the lute of some lover are stealingSome lover, who knows all the heart-touching power
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health. Of a lute, and a sigh, in the magical hour,
Whose story is so pleasing, and so sad,
The swains have turn'd it to a plaintive lay,
And sing it as they tend their mountain sheep.
Joanna Baillie's Basil.
I thank thee; this shall be our daily song,
It cheers my heart, although these foolish tears
Seem to disgrace its sweetness.
Joanna Baillie's Beacon.
Anon through every pulse the music stole,
And held sublime communion with the soul,
Wrung from the coyest breast the imprison'd sigh,
And kindled rapture in the coldest eye.
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment- -born and dying,
With the blest tone that made me!
At midnight, on the blue and moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep.
There's music in the sighing of a reed;
Montgomery's World before the Flood. There's music in the gushing of a rill;
You mov'd her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance; Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And schirrous roots and tendons. "Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Ah, had I liv'd when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!
The words that bear a mission high,
If music-hallow'd, never die!
The Songs that flow'd on Zion's Hill
Warton, from Euripides. Are chanted in God's Temple still,
Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong; It was not song that taught me love, But it was love that taught me song.
Miss Landon's Poems. The Father spake! In grand reverberations
The music was
strong to pass!
Through space roll'd on the mighty music-tide, While to its low, majestic modulations The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.
And wheresoever, in His rich creation, Sweet music breathes-in wave, or bird, or sou "Tis but the faint and far reverberation
Of that grand tune to which the planets roll!
Mrs. Osgood's Poems
Rich, though poor!
My low-roof'd cottage is this hour a heaven
Music is in it and the song she sings,
That sweet-voic'd wife of mine, arrests the ea
Of my young child, awake upon her knee.
Willis's Poems
Why should that name be sounded more than yours? He that is ambitious for his son, should give him
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
'That he is grown so great?
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
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For those have serv'd other men, haply may injure by their evils;
Or otherwise may hinder by their glories; there fore set him by himself,
To win for his individual name some clear praise.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy
The sweetest tales of human weal and sorrow,
The fairest trophies of the limner's fame,
To my fond fancy, MARY, seem to borrow
Celestial halos from thy gentle name.
H. T. Tuckerman. Call me pet names, dearest! Call me thy bird, That flies to thy breast at one cherishing word, That folds its wild wings there, ne'er dreaming of flight,
That tenderly sings there in loving delight!
Oh! my sad heart keeps pining for one fond word,→
Call me pet names, dearest! Call me thy bird!
Mrs. Osgood's Poems.
Land of the West! though passing brief
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