The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

There lies a shell beneath the waves,
In many a hollow winding wreath'd,
Such as of old
Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breath'd;
This magic shell,
From the white bosom of a syren fell,
As once she wander'd by the tide that laves
Sicilia's sands of gold.
It bears
Upon its shining side the mystic notes
Of those entrancing airs ,

The genii of the deep were wont to swell,
When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music roll'd!
Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;
And, if the power
Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,
Go, bring the bright shell to my bower,
And I will fold thee in such downy dreams
As lap the Spirit of the Seventh Sphere,
When Luna's distant tone falls faintly on his ear!

And thou shalt own,
That, through the circle of creation's zone,
Where matter slumbers or where spirit beams;
From the pellucid tides , that whirl
The planets through their maze of song,
To the small rill, that weeps along
Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;
From the rich sigh
Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky ,

To the faint breath the tuneful osier yields
On Afric's burning fields ;
Thou'lt wondering own this universe divine
Is mine!
That I respire in all and all in me,
One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony

Welcome, welcome, mystic shell!
Many a star has ceas'd to burn ,
Many a tear has Saturn's urn
O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept ,

Since thy aërial spell
Hath in the waters slept.
Now blest I'll fly
With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who wak'd its early swell,
The Syren of the heavenly choir,
Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre ;
Or guides around the burning pole
The winged chariot of some blissful soul :
While thou—
Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee!
Beneath Hispania's sun,
Thou'lt see a streamlet run,
Which I've imbued with breathing melody ;

And there, when night-winds down the current die,
Thou'lt hear how like a harp its waters sigh:
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows.

There, by that wondrous stream,
Go, lay thy languid brow,
And I will send thee such a godlike dream,
As never bless'd the slumbers even of him ,
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre ,
Sate on the chill Pangæan mount ,

And, looking to the orient dim,
Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,
From which his soul had drunk its fire.
Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast;
What pious ecstasy
Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose seal upon this new-born world imprest
The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove,
'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower ,
Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?
When, free
From every earthly chain,
From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,
Drank at the source of nature's fontal number ,
And saw, in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,
I swear
By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there ,

Mingling their beams
In a soft iris of harmonious light,
Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams.

In the “Histoire Naturelle des Antilles,” there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. “On le nomme musical, parcequ'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui formoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable.”—Chap. xix. art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts.

According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. “Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus.”—Somn. Scip. Because, says Macrobius, “spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur.”—In Somn. Scip. lib. ii. cap. 4. In their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are not very intelligible. —See Ptolem. lib. iii.

Leone Hebreo, pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. “Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicitia armonica et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro.”—Dialog. ii. di Amore, p. 58. This “reciproco amore” of Leone is the φιλοτης of the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laertius, Αλλοτε μεν φιλοτητι, συνερχομεν', κ. τ. λ., lib. viii. cap. 2. n. 12.

Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes.

Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.

In the account of Africa which D'Ablancourt has translated, there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. “Le même auteur (Abenzégar) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'osier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable,” &c. &c. —L' Afrique de Marmol.

Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.

Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, Την θαλατταν μεν εκαλει ειναι δακρυον (De Vitâ); and some one else, if I mistake not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Empedocles, with similar affectation, called the sea “the sweat of the earth:” ιδρωτα της γης See Rittershusius upon Porphyry, Num. 41.

The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts: —η δε Λυρη επταμιτος εουσα την των κινουμενων αστρων αρμονιαν συνεβαλλετο. κ. τ. λ.. in Astrolog.

Διειλε ψυχας ισαριθμους τοις αστροις, ενειμε θ' εκαστην προς εκαστον, και εμβιβασας ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ—“Distributing the souls severally among the stars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot.” —Plato, Timœus.

This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. Επει ποταμον .. ην δε ακουσι θελης του υδατος λαλουντος. The Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. “In Hispaniâ quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu,” &c. &c.

These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δινας εμπεση, το μεν υδωρ ως χορδη κρουεται. το δε πνευμα του υδατος πληκτρον γινεται. το ρευμα δε ως κιθαρα λαλει. —Lib. ii.

Orpheus.

They called his lyre αρχαιοτροπον επταχορδον Ορφεως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled “Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri.” —Lib. iv. cap. 3. p. 177.

Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangæan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. Επεγειρομενος τε της νυκτος, κατα την εωθινην επι το ορος το καλουμενον Παγγαιον, προσεμενε τας ανατολας, ινα ιδη τον Ηλιον πρωτον. —Καταστερισμ.. 24.

There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr has produced:

Ουτος μεν χαλκειον ες ουρανον εστηρικται
Χρυσειω ενι θρονω, κ. τ. λ.

Ad Græc. Cohortat.

It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications, which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still, it appears doubtful to whom they are to be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

In one of the Hymns of Orpheus, he attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.

Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Iamblich. de Vit. This, as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called παγαν αεναου φυσεως, “the fountain of perennial nature.” Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleverly in his Sale of Philosophers.

This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds.—Οψις τε και ακοη, μετα φωνης τε και φωτος την αρμονιαν επιφαινουσι. —De Musica.

Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to have borrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, “Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui.” This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. —Lib. ii. Variar.