The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

I love to hear the wizard tones
Of thunder, storm, and booming sea,
The wave-voiced winds, and tragic groans
Which make creation's minstrelsy,—
When Art and Genius such a triumph gain
That all seem blended in some master-strain.

And Harmony can also bring
What mental visions love to view,
Pictures, beyond what poets sing,
When most they make the world untrue,—
Landscapes of beauty, isles of bloom and balm,
Elysian verdure, and ambrosial calm.

But, Music wields a nobler spell
Than nature can alone impart;
And with far more than tones can tell
She oft inspires the echoing heart:
To her belongs Association's power,
Which haunts remembrance in its purest hour.

Melodious counterparts of mind
How often do some chords impress,
When Genius, with a hand refined,
Creates the sounds we inly bless!—
All passions, hopes, all principles and fears
Melt into music, and entrance our ears.

Thus, harmony to man may seem
A soul in sound, express'd and heard,
Or like an Angel in our dream
Who whispers some celestial word,
Till minds o'erfraught with feeling's warmest glow
Thrill into tears, and softly overflow.

And oh, ye dead! who never die,—
For though removed from outward gaze,
Your resurrection is the sigh
Pure memory unto virtue pays,—
Though unbeheld, how oft in music's strain
Your deep eyes look into our hearts again!

Yes, chords are touch'd, whose tones awake
And strike the soul's electric string,
Which vibrates till it seems to break
With those intense appeals that bring
Youth, home and childhood, fields, and faces dear
Back to the Heart, which bathes them with a tear.

Thus music, like religion, oft
May elevate the heaven-wing'd mind,
By wafting it to worlds aloft
For peace and purity design'd:
'Tis inspiration, though mere sound it seems,
Prompting the good to more than Glory dreams.

We praise Thee, God! for this fine spell
Pervading harmony can wield:
But, teach us to employ it well,
That it may grace and grandeur yield,
Whether by organ-chant, or choral hymn
Which rolls and deepens down cathedrals dim.

And when congenial hearts delight
In homes of quiet bliss to hear
Soft household-strains, which make the night
To memory as to music dear,
Like silver drops of some melodious shower
Heard in the dewy hush of twilight hour,—

Music seems more than common air
Through chorded instrument awaking,
And oft resembles dying prayer,
Or sighs from lonely hearts half-breaking:
Thus none can dream whence harmonies descend,
Or how their spirit with our own can blend.

Hence music proves a sacred thing,
A power no mortal words can tell;
A heaven of sound it seems to bring
On earth awhile to float and dwell,—
A breaking forth of melodies above,
A speech of seraphim, on lips of Love!

And oft, methinks, the tones which die
And soundless grow to mortal ear,
May re-ascend their mystic Sky,
From whence they sank to our low sphere,—
Like that bright Choir who soar'd from Judah's plain,
To chant in heaven what earth ne'er heard again.