As one who drinks from a charmèd cup Of foaming and sparkling and murmuring wine, Whom, a mighty enchantress filling up, Invites to love with her kiss divine. Percy Bysshe Shelley. THE MONOCHORD (Written during Music) Is it the moved air or the moving sound me, And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound? Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd, That 'mid the tide of all emergency Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labor in the ground? O! what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted shifted steeps and all the way? That draws round me at last this wind-warm space, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Dante Gabriel Rossetti. ON MUSIC When thro' life unblest we rove, In faded eyes that long have wept. Like the gale that sighs along That once was heard in happier hours; Music, oh, how faint, how weak, Language fades before thy spell! Why should Feeling even speak, When thou canst breathe her soul so well? Friendship's balmy words may feign, Love's are ev'n more false than they; Oh! 'tis only music's strain Can sweetly soothe, and not betray. Thomas Moore. PERSISTENT MUSIC Lo! what am I, my heart, that I should dare May reach her where she sits and hath no care. Yea, too, and love, and sing of love until She, pausing for my voice, and listening long, May know its silence sadder than its song. Philip Bourke Marston. MUSIC When whispering strains with creeping wind Distil soft passions through the heart; And when at every touch we find Our pulses beat and bear a part; A heart-string ache, Philosophy Can scarce deny Our souls are made of harmony. When unto heavenly joys we faine Make stars to wink, Philosophy Can scarce deny Our souls consist of harmony. |