The following fragment of an elegant little ode to music will interest the reader of taste, not only on account of the sweetness of its numbers, diction, and sentiment, but also for that melancholy but sublime anticipation of an affecting truth, that he was not made for a long continuance in this world, which caused him to contemplate the future with heightened satisfaction.
By Henry Kirk White.
TO MUSIC.
O give me music; for my soul doth faint.
I'm sick of noise and care: and now mine ear
Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint
That may the spirit from it's cell unsphere.
Hark, how it falls?—And now it steals along,
Like distant bells upon the lake at eve
When all is still—and now it grows more strong,
As when the choral train their dirges weave,
Mellow and many voic'd—where every close
O'er the old minister-roof in wavy echoes flows,
O, I am rapt aloft!—My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind!
Lo, angels lead me to the happy shores,
And floating pæans fill the buoyant wind.
Farewell, base earth farewell.—My soul is freed:
Far from its clayey cell it springs—where music dwells indeed.