"Dolce melodia in aria lumino,"
through the purple air, mingled with ambrosia, and the beams of that evening star. Nay, it might have lulled that head which had nowhere to rest, when perchance it did find some rocky corner; or Saul of Tarsus, or Jonah below on the raging sea. It puts us in mind of the immortal line—
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."
Ah! we see therein the great weary spirit of its own eternal messenger, for once at least, rocked on its waves and soothed by its balm, in the sea of immortality. It is a pleasure to throw together all the ideas with which it inspires us. It seems a foretaste of Schumann and Ernst ("Elegy"); it has their glimmering romance, and Beethoven's own peculiar profound sweetness, not tainted (at least here and yet) by anything morbid, or the suspicion of it. It, too, suggests earlier years—"Ach!" a reminiscence of childhood in Rhineland. It is glamorous, but with the glamour of Ariel—a spirit of good—the spirit of Shakespeare. It is tender and beautiful as Jean Paul; deep, sweet, unutterably. Methinks it paints this:—
"Oh sea! that lately raged and roared—
Art now unruffled by a breath?—
So shall it be, thou Mighty Teacher,
With us—after Death."
And this:—
"And balmy drops in summer dark
Slide from the bosom of the stars."
And this:—
"When summer's hourly mellowing change
May breathe with many roses sweet,
Upon the thousand waves of wheat
That ripple round the lovely grange."
And this—with peculiar propriety:—