So is formed the mental channel By the might of sight and sound, So is tinged the moral current
By what eye and ear have found,-- Until, from its race of ages,
Rolling basely or sublime,
It revealeth less our Adam Than the accidents of time.
Then, how few might be Earth's shadows On the moral current here,
Where young Beauty chaseth Beauty Through and through the ringing year! Happy, happy, peer or peasant,
Whose it were to ever be
By the creamy, creeping border Of this fair, mysterious sea--- Where these shoreward-stealing waters Many-tinted fringes weave:
As their foamy flowers are scattered By the wanton breeze of eve- All his spirit gleaming sweetness Through a wild and dewy eye, From the broad and burning roses On the golden isles of sky.
By the white wave eastward wending From the Causeway's columned shore--- Gloom and glory round us blending,
Crag o'er crag to God ascending
From the wild-sea's whirling roar, Through five lingering leagues or more,-Fixed in lowly, holy bending,
Worship we as heretofore
By this altar huge and hoar, Wonders wild, and far-extending,- Darkly solemn-self-defending, With our inmost soul contending,- 'Tis thy forehead, blue Benmore!
Ah ye strangely warm and zealous For the holy day of rest,
Say ye, also, when ye tell us
Of each scathing curse addressed To the Seventh-day profaner, Whether he, the stern abstainer From all touch that might defile, Were the loser or the gainer,
Were in Heaven's frown or smile, Should he shun the city's leaven For a Sabbath on these sands, Where to wander is to worship- Yea, to know the King of Heaven Through the glory of his hands?
I've adored the God of nature- Yea, the universal Lord, In the closet, at the altar,
On the sea, and on the sward; And I stood beneath these pillars- "Twas a Sabbath morn in May, And I felt-ah! who can tell it? Never, never lips of clay! 'Twas that heaving heart-devotion That hath neither sigh nor pray'r, But a swelling and a rushing
In the inmost spirit, where Ten thousand springs were gushing
It had ne'er been dreamt were there ;- And the on and upward springing Of a faint and dreamy ringing, As if of the passions singing Through each fibre of the brain,— The battle-ground of many thoughts That reeled and wheeled again; Then seethed in rushing roll, Like fire-drops through the soul, With a wildly-winning pain; Then a gazing up to heaven Seeming less in life than death, 'Mid a quickening of the pulses, And a shortening of the breath; Then a bending towards the sod-- Sighing, "light enough is given-
Let us bow before our God!" Oh beneath the proudest altar Consecrated to his name,- Though I might have felt his presence, I could ne'er have felt the same As between those warring waters Where our northern land is lost, And that pillared pile, the glory Of old Dalriada's coast.
There is grandeur in your city, Where the sculptured columns soar,
And the sea of human beauty
Heaveth, heaveth evermore. There is grandeur in yon mountain, When beneath the burning West Ten thousand tiny torches At as many pearly porches
O'er that mountain's heathery breast Flash and twinkle-flash and twinkle, As the dying day-beams sprinkle
Their red life-drops o'er its crest- O'er that showery, flowery crest; While the rosy vapour, rising Round the tomb of Light supernal, Floats and tinges- floats and tinges Feathery clouds with snowy fringes, Till they meet the musing eye,
Like the locks of the Eternal
On that silvery waste of sky.
There is grandeur-there is grandeur When the red sun disappears, And the mourning face of heaven Waxeth bright with starry tears. Yea, above, below is grandeur, When the dazzling day comes down, Till each distant atom sparkles
Like some passing seraph's crown. There is grandeur in the valley, When along the shores of light Floats a sea of twilight vapour, Till the pine grove, tall and taper, Wears the gloom of coming night;- And the silent blast descendeth, Swimming-skimming through the haze, Till the tasselled grass-stalk bendeth As if trodden by your gaze ;- While across the ripening meadow Fleeth shadow after shadow ;- Gloomy spirits seem they passing, O'er the sward their sadness tracing, Where each unseen light-foot plays. Oh! there's beauty-oh! there's beauty, Seek we, turn we where we will,- But a vision haunts my spirit
Of sublimer beauty still.
Be it mine to live and listen,
Where the stormy echoes ring,
When the angel of the tempest
O'er these waters flaps his wing;
And the waves, like white-robed choristers, Wild hallelujahs sing,—
Wild hallelujahs utter,
Or their deeper worship mutter To the All, of all revered, Underneath each kingly column Nature-chiselled,
Stark and grizzled,
Of the stately, stern and solemn, Huge and mystic, wild and weird, Caverned, clouded, cleft and seared Temple of the Form of wonder, By the mystic sons of thunder
Amid storm and darkness reared.
"The most valuable collections of catches, rounds, and canons, for three or four voices, were cautiously circulated during the Protectorate; and deep in the retirement of many such a house as Woodstock the prayers for the Restoration and the practice of profane music, were kept up together."
"The merry monarch loved a tune, and small blame to him."-Quarterly Review.
Hot and sudden swoop'd Rupert's horse Down on the villanous Roundhead churls, But they left young Arthur a mangled corse, With the red mire clotting his chesnut curls :
Only son of an ancient race
As any that dwells in England's realm
Ah, a shadow sleeps on Sir Everard's face
When he thinks of his soldier's snow-plumed helm.
Madrigal music fills the room
With a spring-like beauty and delicate grace: Vanishes half their weary gloom
As Harry St. Osyth's manly bass
And Maud's soprano and Amy in alt
Mingle like streams on a verdurous shore:
But memory sets them once at fault
As they think of the tenor that's heard no more.
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить » |