 | Fragments and Fancies |  |
12
MUSIC AND MEMORY.
'Tis the sweet strain I heard in days of yore!—That soft sweet strain calls back those days once more,
And while its blessed breathings richly float,
Some long-lost feeling lives in every note.
Oh! were I blest as I of old was blest,
These sounds might not distract the awakened breast;
Then, then might I those strains untortured drink,
But now each note seems an electric link
To bind my present to my shadowy past,
With sweet, sweet shock, that makes me shrink aghast!
Not only floats this strain i' the haunted air,
The Music of old Memories trembles there.
Aye—in the pale blue haunted air around
There floats a Music far past that of Sound!
And for awhile its power triumphant flings
Beauty, and Joy, and Glory o'er all things!
13
A melancholy Joy, and full of change;
And a most shadowy Glory, such as dwells
Round setting suns that smile their last farewells
'Mid gathering clouds, which gloomily forestall
The approach of Night, and weave Day's funeral-pall—
Oh! thou Sweet Strain I heard and loved of yore,
Wake these vain Memories of the past no more!
| Fragments and Fancies | |