Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Accept these lines, my brother, and my friend,
If kindly you approve, not vainly penn'd.
Yet all the strongest colourings are faint,
To one who feels beyond what words can paint.
Music has charms peculiar to a man
Whose life is form'd on Harmony's own plan;
Whose actions, and their motives, ever run
With Virtue's laws in happy unison.
Still persevere—then shall the numbers be
From ev'ry charge of partial friendship free.
But wherefore partial, since it is confest,
They worth most justly praise, who know it best?
Him to commend not, for pure morals fam'd,
Is an express affront at Virtue aim'd.

260

Besides, praise to ingenuous minds, creates
What, by assumption, it already rates;
As the same sun-beam, that adorns the flow'r,
Matures its lenient sweets and healing pow'r.

Hail, Harmony! hail, native of the skies,
Where thou art wont before the throne to rise,
On golden harp, with angels all on flame,
To celebrate the dread Eternal Name!
Seraphic charmer, hail! to man sent down
To soften into smiles Misfortune's frown:
Sent down the joys of Eden to restore,
His pledge of higher, when life's drama's o'er;
When, from the dross of elements refin'd,
He lives all pure and unembodied mind;
With spirits lives, whose vast durations run
Thro' ages never ended, still begun.
Spirits, like him, once in probation tried,
To matter, though in different mode, allied;
In higher ranks, by no first stain disgrac'd,
Of intuition, thought, and reason plac'd.
There, heav'n-taught art! in Glory's native clime,
Thy touches of the tender, and sublime,
The sweet, the grand, the melting, and the soft,
That languish, or majestic swell aloft,

261

With uncreated energy of sound,
Shall make infinitude of space rebound;
Rouse to high flame Devotion's hallow'd fires,
A flame, heart-kindled flame, that ne'er expires;
Which to an angel the mere mortal turns,
And only in celestial bosoms burns.

Hail! living type of man design'd to be,
When all his various active pow'rs agree;
Or, join'd with discord, aptly to define
His complex nature, earthly and divine:
Discord his emblem, when his passions jar,
And rage tumultuous in eternal war!

Each passion acts obsequious to thy pow'r,
Rises or falls, in the same conscious hour;
While human skill, in impotent essays,
Would labour that to calm, or this to raise.
Vengeance sits brooding o'er the darken'd face,
In sullen gloom eclips'd each social grace;
Or, shrinking from the rash vindictive vow,
Smiles sweet Forgiveness with an angel's brow.
Anger within indomitable storms,
And all the ruffled countenance deforms;
Or Meekness, mov'd not by the harsh reply,
Softens each beam that vibrates from the eye.

262

When all the charms of oratory fail
To rouse the soul, thy pathos can prevail.
Let Cicero his wordy thunder wield,
If Orpheus plays, the Roman boast must yield.
That vigour to a senate-house might give,
This made ev'n things inanimate to live.
When Reason, on her dictatorial throne,
Argues and pleads, with undecisive tone;
Thy rhetoric of sound, beyond her aid,
Thy lyre-breath'd strains of language can persuade.

Oh! at that crisis of alarming fate,
Just to commence a new eternal state;
When, like a broken reed, or trembling asp,
All human comfort sinks beneath my grasp;
When friends, suffus'd in sorrow and despair,
Express their anguish, but no hopes declare,
With downcast looks, and sighs-returning breath,
Adding a dread solemnity to death:
Oh! by Religion made a welcome guest,
Thy habitation, seraph, be my breast,
To soothe the spirit, soon its flight to wing,
And to each thought celestial requiems sing!