Go, give that moment up to art,
When Heaven and nature claim the heart;
And, dull to all their best attraction,
Go--measure _angles of refraction_.
While I, in feeling's sweet romance,
Look on each daybeam as a glance
From the great eye of Him above,
Wakening his world with looks of love!
[1] Aristippus.
THE TELL-TALE LYRE.
I've heard, there was in ancient days
A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas heaven to hear its fairy lays,
If half be true that legends tell.
'Twas played on by the gentlest sighs,
And to their breath it breathed again
In such entrancing melodies
As ear had never drunk till then!
Not harmony's serenest touch
So stilly could the notes prolong;
They were not heavenly song so much
As they were dreams of heavenly song!
If sad the heart, whose murmuring air
Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awakened there
Were eloquence from pity's soul.
Or if the sigh, serene and light,
Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
Soon whispered it to kind repose.
And when young lovers talked alone,
If, mid their bliss, that Lyre was near,
It made their accents all its own,
And sent forth notes that heaven might hear.
There was a nymph, who long had loved,
But dared not tell the world how well:
The shades, where she at evening roved,
Alone could know, alone could tell.
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