XLIX. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE. THE gentlest Poet, with free thoughts endowed, O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee, Of all thy feathered progeny Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair? So richly decked in variegated down, Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown, Hues doubtfully begun and ended; Or intershooting, and to sight Lost and recovered, as the rays of light Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there? Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life Began the pencil's strife, O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare. A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong That in the living Creature find on earth a place. L. A JEWISH FAMILY. (IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE.) GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings Might bear thee to this glen, To pencil dear and pen, Thou wouldst forego the neighboring Rhine, And all his majesty, A studious forehead to incline O'er this poor family. The Mother, her thou must have seen, In spirit, ere she came To dwell these rifted rocks between, Or found on earth a name; An image, too, of that sweet Boy, Of playfulness, and love, and joy, Downcast, or shooting glances far, I see the dark-brown curls, the brow, The holiness within ; The grace of parting Infancy By blushes yet untamed; Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet Such beauty hath the Eternal poured Though of a lineage once abhorred, Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite Doth here preserve a living light, Of Palestine, of glory past, And proud Jerusalem! LI. ON THE POWER OF SOUND. 1828. ARGUMENT. The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony. Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza). The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot.- Origin of music, and its effect in early ages, how produced (to the middle of 10th Stanza). The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally. - Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation. - (Stanza 12th.) The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universe; - imaginations consonant with such a theory. - Wish expresscd (in 11th Stanza) realized, in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator. (Last Stanza.) The destruction of earth and the planetary system, the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ. I. THY functions are ethereal, As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind, Strict passage, through which sighs are brought, And shrieks, that revel in abuse Of shivering flesh; and warbled air, The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle, II. The headlong streams and fountains Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers; Cheering the wakeful tent on Syrian mountains, They lull perchance ten thousand thousand flowers. |