Break forth into thanksgiving,
Ye banded instruments of wind and chords;
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,[590] 195
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon;
Thou too be heard, lone eagle![591] freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune 200
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work,[592] by flaming Seraphim
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls, 205
All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
Into the ear of God, their Lord!
XIV
A Voice to Light gave Being;[593]
To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler; 210
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)
To archangelic lips applied, 215
The grave shall open, quench the stars.[594]
O Silence! are Man's noisy years
No more than moments of thy life?[595]
Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just, 220
Tempered into rapturous strife,
Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust
And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay
Is in the Word, that shall not pass away.[596]
FOOTNOTES:
[571] 1836.
Stanzas on ... 1835.
[572] Compare Gray's Elegy, l. 39.—Ed.
[573] Compare L'Allegro, II. 135-37—
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse.
Ed.