That bleat, how tender! of the dam Shout, cuckoo!-let the vernal soul Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll! At the still hour to Mercy dear, Mercy from her twilight throne Listening to nun's faint throb of holy fear, 3. Ye Voices, and ye Shadows, And Images of voice-to hound and horn On with your pastime! till the church-tower bells A greeting give of measured glee; And milder echoes from their cells Where mists are breaking up or gone, A liquid concert matchless by nice Art, 4. Blest be the song that brightens The blind man's gloom, exalts the veteran's mirth; Unscorned the peasant's whistling breath, that lightens His duteous toil of furrowing the green earth. For the tired slave, Song lifts the languid oar. And bids it aptly fall, with chime That beautifies the fairest shore, And mitigates the harshest clime. Yon pilgrims see-in lagging file They move; but soon the appointed way And to their hope the distant shrine Glisten with a livelier ray: Nor friendless he, the prisoner of the mine, Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest. When civic renovation 5. Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads? Even She whose Lydian airs inspire Of timid hope and innocent desire Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move 6. How oft along thy mazes, Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod ! O Thou, through whom the temple rings with praises, And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God, Betray not by the cozenage of sense Thy votaries, wooingly resigned To a voluptuous influence That taints the purer, better mind; But lead sick Fancy to a harp That hath in noble tasks been tried; And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp, The uplifted arm of Suicide; And let some mood of thine in firm array 7. As Conscience, to the centre Of being, smites with irresistible pain; And then aghast, as at the world By concords winding with a sway Terrible for sense and soul! Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay. Point not these mysteries to an Art Lodged above the starry pole; Pure modulations flowing from the heart Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth With Order dwell, in endless youth? 8. Oblivion may not cover All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time. And voice and shell drew forth a tear 9. The GIFT to King Amphion That walled a city with its melody Was for belief no dream ;-thy skill, Arion! Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves, Leave for one chant;-the dulcet sound So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, |