The oriole gives his matins o'er, No song-bird now hath any skill; Even that reproachful whippoorwill

That stirred such memories in my heart

Is hushed, yet comes, a listener still,

Nightly, to hear Cordelia's art.

O virgins of the silver lute!
O goddess of the golden chord!

And thou great master of the flute,
Pan, of the reeds acknowledged lord!
Troop hither, and your best reward
For your old music, in the days
When young Apollo was your king,
Shall be to peep from yonder bays,
And hear your latest scholar sing.

Thomas W. Parsons.

ON MUSIC

Many love music but for music's sake;
Many because her touches can awake

Thoughts that repose within the breast half dead,

And rise to follow where she loves to lead.

What various feelings come from days gone

by!

What tears from far-off sources dim the eye!
Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play,
And melodies swell, pause and melt away,
Mind how at every touch, at every tone,
A spark of life hath glisten'd and hath gone.
Walter Savage Landor.

DISSONANCES

Oft in the midst of music rare
Comes a break in the fluent air;

Seeming dissonances creep

Into the chords once tender, deep.

But, as the deft musician plays
On to the end, the music strays

Back to harmonies that are meet,
Making the whole a thing more sweet.

So, from the strings of the harp of life
Notes may be struck with discord rife;

But when the air is played, you see
They were a part of the melody.

Richard Burton.

ON MUSIC

I cannot tell how high my soul takes wing, Nor to what depths in liquid sweets it sinks

Yet well I know it suffers from thy sting,
As one who of Cyceon mixture drinks.
And I can feel a rose-stream thro' me creep,
Curving about my senses, as they leap,
And swell and rise and fall,

As blossoms ambrosial

Shook from some full-blown orange-tree in spring,

Sink wav'ring to the ground

And bound

Unto the zephyr's piping, in dizzy, dizzy ring! William Stanley Braithwaite.

SONNET CXXVIII.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

Profane Music

From painting by G. Dubufe