POWER OF MUSIC. 123 Whose oaks were vocal with his earliest rhymes. Tinged with deep shade, dim gold, and brightening green; Of morning fades;—but when heaven's gates unbar, Burns on the hill, and down the valley blushes; While sunbeams warm and gild the conscious strings, From rising morn, the tuneful stripling roves By nature's smile and nature's music led, 124 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, Toss their old arms, and challenge every storm. Gothic its structure; once a cross it bore, When in those vaults the midnight dirge was sung, Now, all is still:—the midnight anthem hushed :- Faint, weary, lost, benighted, and alone, He sinks, all trembling, on the threshold stone. POWER OF MUSIC. They're superstitious, but religious still. Or, deep beneath him, heave with boundless roar 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, The scudding cloud, that drives along the coast, O'er Morven's woods and Tura's mouldering wall, 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, Or dream of Seraphim, It were not sad, to cast away It were not sad, to feel the heart |