 | Poems (1791) |  |
III.
Musick's a celestial art;
Cease to wonder at it's pow'r,
Tho' lifeless rocks to motion start,
Tho' trees dance lightly from the bow'r,
Tho' rolling floods in sweet suspence
Are held, and listen into sense.
In Penhurst's plains when Waller, sick with love,
Has found some silent solitary grove,
Where the vague moon-beams pour a silver flood
Of trem'lous light athwart th'unshaven wood,
Within an hoary moss-grown cell,
He lays his careless limbs without reserve,
And strikes, impetuous strikes each quer'lous nerve
Of his resounding shell.
In all the woods, in all the plains
Around a lively stillness reigns;
The deer approach the secret scene,
And weave their way thro' labyrinths green;
While Philomela learns the lay,
And answers from the neighbouring bay.
But Medway, melancholy mute,
Gently on his urn reclines,
And all-attentive to the lute,
In uncomplaining anguish pines:
The crystal waters weep away,
And bear the tidings to the sea:
Neptune in the boisterous seas.
Spreads the placid bed of peace,
While each blast,
Or breathes it's last,
Or just does sigh a symphony and cease.
Cease to wonder at it's pow'r,
Tho' lifeless rocks to motion start,
Tho' trees dance lightly from the bow'r,
Tho' rolling floods in sweet suspence
Are held, and listen into sense.
In Penhurst's plains when Waller, sick with love,
Has found some silent solitary grove,
Where the vague moon-beams pour a silver flood
Of trem'lous light athwart th'unshaven wood,
Within an hoary moss-grown cell,
He lays his careless limbs without reserve,
And strikes, impetuous strikes each quer'lous nerve
Of his resounding shell.
In all the woods, in all the plains
Around a lively stillness reigns;
The deer approach the secret scene,
And weave their way thro' labyrinths green;
46
And answers from the neighbouring bay.
But Medway, melancholy mute,
Gently on his urn reclines,
And all-attentive to the lute,
In uncomplaining anguish pines:
The crystal waters weep away,
And bear the tidings to the sea:
Neptune in the boisterous seas.
Spreads the placid bed of peace,
While each blast,
Or breathes it's last,
Or just does sigh a symphony and cease.
CHORUS.
Neptune, &c. &c. | Poems (1791) | |