Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 - Various - Страница 6

A rain-flood from the mountain-riven,

It leaps, in thunder, forth to Day,

Before its rush the crags are driven—

The oaks uprooted, whirl'd away—

Aw'd, yet in awe all wildly glad'ning,

The startled wanderer halts below;

He hears the rock-born waters mad'ning,

Nor wits the source from whence they go,—

So, from their high, mysterious Founts along,

Stream on the silenc'd world the Waves of Song!

Knit with the threads of life, for ever,

By those dread Powers that weave the woof,—

Whose art the singer's spell can sever?

Whose breast has mail to music proof?

Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder

The Herald8 of the Gods has given:

He sinks the soul the death-realm under,

Or lifts it breathless up to heaven—

Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion

Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.

As, when the halls of Mirth are crowded,

Portentous, on the wanton scene—

Some Fate, before from wisdom shrouded,

Awakes and awes the souls of Men—

Before that Stranger from ANOTHER,

Behold how THIS world's great ones bow—

Mean joys their idle clamour smother,

The mask is vanish'd from the brow—

And from Truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurl'd,

Fly all the craven Falsehoods of the World!

So, rapt from every care and folly,

When spreads abroad the lofty lay,

The Human kindles to the Holy,

And into Spirit soars the Clay!

One with the Gods the Bard: before him

All things unclean and earthly fly—

Hush'd are all meaner powers, and o'er him

The dark fate swoops unharming by;

And while the Soother's magic measures flow,

Smooth'd every wrinkle on the brows of Woe!

Even as a child that, after pining

For the sweet absent mother—hears

Her voice—and, round her neck entwining

Young arms, vents all his soul in tears;—

So, by harsh custom far estranged,

Along the glad and guileless track,

To childhood's happy home, unchanged,

The swift song wafts the wanderer back—

Snatch'd from the coldness of unloving Art

To Nature's mother arms—to Nature's glowing heart!