MUSIC.

THERE'S music in the air of heav'n

That air unstay'd by bar or boundAnd spirits that have nobly striv'n, By adverse winds relentless driv'n, There, float on wings of magic sound.

The melting lute, the kindling lyre,

With trump and tabret soar and swell ; While lips that glow with hallow'd fire Blend issue with the waving wire,

Soft as Cyllene's fabled shell.

All the wide range of chaunt and song,
With cadence clear as crystal rain,

And rhythmic waves in marshall'd throng,

And choral currents deep and strong,

That flash, and faint, and flow again.

There, music is the soul of bliss,
The life-breath of the pure and free ;
And they who, in a world like this,
Receiv'd her not, or judg'd amiss,
Gain the new sense of harmony.

But not alone her accents rise,

Where toil and tumult fret no more;

Her spirit in man's bosom lies
To waft faith's broken symphonies
In sound-waves to th' eternal shore.

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With utt'rance human, yet divine,

The felt, the immaterial Art

From childhood's dawn till life's decline,

Who may defy? yet who define,

Her right of empire o'er the heart?

She bids the waters tuneful steal

The dews in murmur'd measures drop;
Creation doth her depths unseal,
Like some vast organ's mingled peal,

With shudd'ring blast and dulcet stop.

She trembles in the voice of God,
Heard sternly in the thunders' roll;
Borne on the whirlwind far abroad,
Where step of man hath never trod,
Her echoes ring from pole to pole.

She whispers in each fitful sound,

Wing'd from the bugle of the breeze,
Fresh'ning the sod of mead and mound,
Or for the flying barque unbound,
That linger'd long on slumb'ring seas.

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She lives in ev'ry clarion-word,

That wakes the soul to nobler aim;

Sweet as the brood-call of the bird,

The phantom-lay, by poets heard,
Keen pressing in the lists of fame.

She stands reveal'd from clime to clime :
Love, genius, beauty, court her glow ;
And, stedfast in her fadeless prime,
She counts the silver beats of time
In heav'n above and earth below.

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Crown'd 'mid the arts' immortal Spring,

She lifts the joy-valve God hath giv'n;

From pain and sorrow plucks the sting,

But, by the chosen lips that sing,

Breathes the one language fram'd for heav'n.