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POWER OF MUSIC.

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Whose oaks were vocal with his earliest rhymes.
With airy foot he treads that giddy height;
His heart all rapture, and his eye all light;
His voice all melody, his yellow hair
Floating and dancing on the mountain air,
Shaking from its loose folds the liquid pearls,
That gather clustering on his golden curls ;—
And, for a moment, gazes on a scene,

Tinged with deep shade, dim gold, and brightening green;
Then plays a mournful prelude, while the star

Of morning fades;—but when heaven's gates unbar,
And on the world a tide of glory rushes,

Burns on the hill, and down the valley blushes;
The mountain bard in livelier numbers sings,

While sunbeams warm and gild the conscious strings,
And his young bosom feels the enchantment strong
Of light, and joy, and minstrelsy, and song.

From rising morn, the tuneful stripling roves
Through smiling valleys and religious groves;
Hears, there, the flickering blackbird strain his throat,
Here, the lone turtle pour her mournful note,
Till night descends, and round the wanderer flings
The dew-drops dripping from her dusky wings.
Far from his native vale and humble shed

By nature's smile and nature's music led,
This child of melody has thoughtless strayed,

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POWER OF MUSIC.

Till darkness wraps him in her deepening shade. The scene that cheered him, when arrayed in light, Now lowers around him with the frown of night.

With weary foot the nearest height he climbs,
Crowned with huge oaks, giants of other times;
Who feel, but fear not, Autumn's breath, and cast
Their summer robes upon the roaring blast,
And glorying in their majesty of form,

Toss their old arms, and challenge every storm.
Below him, Ocean rolls:-deep in a wood,
Built on a rock, and frowning o'er the flood,
Like the dark Cyclops of Trinacria's isle,
Rises an old and venerable pile:

Gothic its structure; once a cross it bore,
And pilgrims thronged to hail it and adore.
Mitres and crosiers awed the trembling friar,
The solemn organ led the chanting quire,

When in those vaults the midnight dirge was sung,
And o'er the dead a requiescat rung.

Now, all is still:—the midnight anthem hushed :-
The cross is crumbled, and the mitre crushed.
And is all still?-No: round those ruined altars,
With feeble foot as our musician falters,

Faint, weary, lost, benighted, and alone,

He sinks, all trembling, on the threshold stone.
Here nameless fears the young enthusiast chill:

POWER OF MUSIC.

They're superstitious, but religious still.
He hears the sullen murmur of the seas,
That tumble round the stormy Orcades,

Or, deep beneath him, heave with boundless roar
Their sparkling surges to that savage shore;
And thinks a spirit rolls the weltering waves
Through rifted rocks and hollow-rumbling caves.

125

Round the dark windows clasping ivy clings, Twines round the porch, and in the sea-breeze swings; Its green leaves rustle :-heavy winds arise;

The low cells echo, and the dark hall sighs.

Now Fancy sees the ideal canvass stretched,

And o'er the lines, that Truth has dimly sketched,
Dashes with hurried hand the shapes that fly
Hurtled along before her frenzied eye.

The scudding cloud, that drives along the coast,
Becomes the drapery of a warrior's ghost,
Who sails serenely in his gloomy pall,

O'er Morven's woods and Tura's mouldering wall,
To join the feast of shells, in Odin's misty hall.
Is that some demon's shriek, so loud and shrill,
Whose flapping robes sweep o'er the stormy hill ?
No:-'tis the mountain blast, that nightly rages
Around those walls, gray with the moss of ages.
Is that a lamp sepulchral, whose pale light
Shines in yon vault, before a spectre white?

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And sighing heaves a low, funereal moan, That murmurs through the cemetery's gloo And throws a deadlier horror round its tom Sure, some dread spirit o'er the keys presić The same that lifts these darkly thundering Or, homeless, shivers o'er an unclosed grav Or shrieking, off at sea, bestrides the white-n

Yes!-'tis some Spirit that those skies def And wraps in billowy clouds that hill of sto Yes:-'tis a Spirit in those vaults that dwell Illumes that hall, and murmurs in those cells Yes:-'tis some Spirit on the blast that rides, And wakes the eternal tumult of the tides. That Spirit broke the poet's morning dream, Led him o'er woody hill and babbling stream, Lured his young foot to every vale that rung And charmed his ear in every bird that sung With various concerts cheered his hours of l But kept the mightiest in reserve till night; Then, throned in darkness, pealed that wildes Froze his whole soul, and chained the listener

EUTHANASIA.

BY WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK.

METHINKS, when on the languid eye

Life's autumn scenes grow dim; When evening shadows veil the sky, And Pleasure's syren hymn

Grows fainter on the tuneless ear,
Like echoes from another sphere,

Or dream of Seraphim,

It were not sad, to cast away
This dull and cumbrous load of clay.

It were not sad, to feel the heart
Grow passionless and cold;
To feel those longings to depart,
That cheered the good of old;

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