And from your inmost bowers select a bay
To deck the favourite theme.
Do thou attend,
Thou whom Lucretius to his great design
Invoked; and with thee bring thy darling son,
Who tuned Anacreon's lyre, to guide my hand,
Adventurous, raised to sweep harmonious chords.
Come, all ye sons of liberty, who wake
From dreams of superstition, where the soul,
Through mists of forced belief, but dimly views
Its own great Maker; come, and I will guide,
Uninterrupted by the jargon shrill
Of peevish priests, your footsteps to the throne
Where pleasure reigns with reason, to behold
His majesty celestial, and adore
Him through each object of proportion fair,
The source of virtue, harmony, and bliss!
Ere this delightful face of things adorn'd
The great expanse of day, dark Chaos reign'd,
And elemental Discord; in the womb
Of ancient Night the war of atoms raged
Incessant; Anarchy, Confusion wild,
Harsh Dissonance, and Uproar fill'd the whole;
Till that Eternal One, who from the first
Existed, sent his plastic word abroad
Throughout the vast abyss: created worlds.
Felt the sweet impulse, and obedient fled
To stations ascertain'd; there to perform
Their various motions, corresponding all
To one harmonious plan, which fablers feign
The mystic music of the distant spheres.
All this the Samian sage' had seen at large,
It is very evident that Pythagoras, who is justly esteemed in one respect the inventor of music, had a clear notion of the present astronomical system, though the honour of the dis
From Ida's cloud-topp'd summit, or the cave
With Epimenides, where he survey'd,
Higher on wings of contemplation borne,
The mighty maze of nature; whence he learn'd,
From that celestial number2, how to form
The lyre heart-melting and the vocal shell.
Thus all the power of music from the spheres
Descends to wake the tardy soul of man
From dreams terrestrial; ever to its charms
Obsequious, ever by its dulcet strains
Smooth'd from the passions of tempestuous life,
And taught to preenjoy its native heaven.
Whilst through this vale of error we pursue
Ideal joys, where Fancy leads us on
Through scenes of paradise in fairy forms
Of ease, of pleasure, or extensive power;
And when we think full fairly we possess
The promised heaven, Disease or wrinkled Care
Fill with their loathed embrace our eager grasp,
And leave us in a wilderness of woe
Το weep at large; where shall we seek relief,
Where ease the' oppressive anguish of the mind,
When Retrospection glows with conscious shame
By gray Experience in the wholesome school
covery was reserved for Copernicus so many ages after. Nor was this sentiment of his unknown to the rest of the philosophers for the Stagyrite, in the 13th chapter of the 2d book weps Oupave, speaks of it in these terms. "Those philosophers, who are called Pythagoreans, affirm that the sun is in the middle, and that the earth, like the rest of the planets, rolls round it upon its own axis, and so forms the day and night.'
2 The number of the planets.
Παντες δ' επίαπονοιο λυρης φθογίοισι συνωδον
Αρμονίην προσεχεσι διαςας αλλος απ' αλλο.
ALEX. Ephes. apud Heracl. de Hom.
Of Sorrow tutor'd? Whither shall we fly?
To wilds and woods, and leave the busy world
For solitude? Ah! thither still pursue
The' intruding fiends, attend our evening walk,
Breathe in each breeze, and murmur in each rill;
Where Peace, protected by the turtle wing
Of Innocence, expands the lovely bloom
gay Content, no more to be enjoy'd,
But lost for ever! Yet benignant Heaven,
Correcting with parental pity, sent
This friendly siren from the groves of Joy,
To temper with mellifluent strains the voice
Of mental Anguish, and attune the groans
Of young Impatience, to the softer sound
Of grateful pæans to its Maker's praise.
Alike, if ills external, made our own,
Mix in the cup of life the bitter drop
Of sorrow; when the childless father sighs
From the remembrance of his dying son;
When Death has sever'd, with a long farewell,
The lover from the object of desire,
In the full bloom of youth, and leaves the wretch,
To sooth affliction in the well known scenes
Of blameless rapture once; uncouth Advice
In vain intrudes with sacerdotal frown,
And Superstition's jargon, to expel
The sweet distress; the generous soul disdains,
Deaf to such monkish precepts, all constraint,
And gives a loose to grief; but straight apply
The lenient force of numbers, they'll assuage
By calm degrees the sympathetic pain,
Till lull'd at length, the intellectual powers
Sink to divine repose, and rage no more.
So when descended rains from Alpine rocks
Burst forth in different torrents, down they rush
Precipitate, and o'er the craggy steep
Hoarse roaring bear the parted soil away;
Anon, collected on the smoother plains,
Glide to the channel of some ancient flood,
And flow one silent stream. This oft I felt
When wandering through the unfrequented woods,
Mourning for poor Ardelia's hapless fate,
Thee, my beloved Melodius, I have heard
In silent rapture all the livelong day. [thoughts
Though black Despair sat brooding o'er my
Pregnant with horror, thy Platonic lay
Dispell'd the' unmanly sorrows, and again
Led forth my vagrant fancy through the plan
Of Nature, studious to explore with thee
Each beauteous scene of musical delight,
Which bears fraternal likeness to the soul.
Is there a passion3, whose impetuous force
Disturbs the human breast, and, breaking forth
With sad eruptions, deals destruction round,
Like flames convulsive from the' Etnean mole,
But by the magic strains of some soft air
Is harmonized to peace? as tempests cease
Their elemental fury, when the queen
Of heaven, descending on a zephyr's plume,
Smiles on the enamel'd landscape of the spring.
Say, at that solemn hour, the noon of night,
When nought but plaintive Philomela wakes,
Say, whilst she warbles forth her tragic tale,
Whilst grief melodious charms the silvan powers,
And Echo from her inmost cave of rest
3 Spirto ha' ben dissonante, anima sorde,
Che dal concerto universal discorda.
L'Adone del Marino, Cant. sett.
G
Joins in her wailing, dost not thou partake
A melancholy pleasure? And though rage
Did lead thee forth beneath the silent gloom
To meditate on horror and revenge,
Thy soften'd soul is gently sooth'd within,
And, humanized again by Pity's voice,
Becomes as tender as the gall-less dove.
Nor is the tuneful blessing here confined
To cure distemper'd passions, and allay
By its persuasive notes convulsive throbs
Of soul alone; but (strange!) with subtle power
Acts on the grosser matter of the frame
By riot shatter'd, or the casual lot
Of sickness wither'd. When the' harmonious plan
Of inward beauty ceases, oft the lute,
By soft vibrations on responsive nerves,
Has reconciled, by medicinal sounds,
Corporeal Chaos to its pristine form.
Such is the fabled charm Italians boast
To cure that insect's venom, which benumbs
By fatal touch the frozen veins, and lulls
The senses in oblivion: when the harp,
Sonorous, through the patient's bosom pours
Its antidotal notes, the flood of life,
Loosed at its source by tepefying strains,
Flows like some frozen silver stream unthaw'd
At a warm zephyr of the genial spring.
Doubt you those charms of music o'er the soul
Of man? Behold! e'en brute creation feels 4
Its power divine! For when the liquid flute
Breathes amorous airs, touch'd by the lovesick
swain,
See the surprising effects of music related by Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Polybius, and other ancient authors.
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