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HE touched the silver strings, while her dark eye
Grew to more perfect beauty, when the sigh
Passed from the chords sweet as it loved the hand
Ruling their music with such soft command.

At first the notes were tremulous, like the break

Of rising colour on her delicate cheek,

And varying, till at last their timid tone

Fixed on an ancient air; such ones are known

To the dove's nest, or to the olive wood,

Where hath the nightingale her solitude.

168

ARIETTE FOR MUSIC.

Her song found words, it was like the "sweet south,"

Breathing in odours from her rosebud mouth.

It was an old song, of love and sorrow made,

And sang so touchingly that it betrayed

Those sad, deep thoughts, which haunt the youthful heart
By nature mournful.

G. S. NEWTON.

ARIETTE FOR MUSIC.

S the moon's soft splendour,

O'er the faint, cold, starlight of heaven
Is thrown,

So thy voice most tender,

To the strings without soul, has given

Its own.

The stars will awaken,

Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night.

No leaf will be shaken,

While the dews of thy melody will scatter

Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,

Sing again, with thy sweet voice revealing

A tone

Of some world far from ours,

Where music, and moonlight, and feeling

Are one.

SHELLEY.

SCOTTISH MUSIC.

109

TO A LADY, SINGING.

H, breathe, melodious minstrel, once again
Thy soul-entrancing song! Responsive tears
Attest thy power. Thy gentle voice appears
Like sounds of summer eve, or some sweet strain
That wildly haunts the visionary brain,
Vanished years

Or charms the slumbering mourner.

That Time's dim twilight hallows and endears,
Return like shadows o'er the trembling moon
Beneath the lunar beam. Then waken still
Those magic notes with more than music fraught.
Angelic harmonies! Each echo seems

A spell from heaven by skill celestial wrought
To cheer the clouded mind, the sad heart thrill
With sacred memories, and delightful dreams

RICHARDSON.

SCOTTISH MUSIC.

GAIN, sweet siren, breathe again
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain,

Whose melting tones of tender woe

Fall soft as evening's summer dew,

That bathes the pinks and hare-bells blue

Which, in the vales of Teviot, blow.

Oh! if, as ancient sages ween,

Departed spirits, half unseen,

Can mingle with the mortal throng,

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TO A SOLEMN MUSIC.

Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!.

Thy wonders, in that god-like age,
Fill thy recording sister's page.

'Tis said, and I believe the tale,

Thy humblest reed could more prevail,

Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound,—
Oh, bid our vain endeavour cease;
Revive the just designs of Grace:
Return in all thy simple state!

Confirm the tales her sons relate !

COLLINS.

TO A SOLEMN MUSIC.

LEST pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy,

Sphere-born, harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ.
Dead things with inbreathed sense, able to pierce,
And to our high raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To Him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee ;
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud, uplifted, angel-trumpets blow;

III

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