MUSIC.

Soft music makes me sad; as if its tones
Were turned to discord, by the jar and din
Of evil passions-earth's loud dissonance
Of sordid purposes and selfish aims.

Art is but nature's finer sense exprest,

In forms idealized. The graver's style,

The brush, string, chisel, voice, each acts, the while, Its fitting part; to eye or ear addrest,

In shape, or hue, in tune, or spoken sounds. Music of these may earliest lineage claim,

Child of the grove! what time the gay birds* came, Warbling, self-taught, while earth with joy resounds, Eve's bridal song, through Eden's verdant bounds. Love first waked music and the tuneful mind

Pours still, thro' thrilling notes, with rapture fraught, In one deep symphony of passion joined,

Hope, fear, love, joy, whate'er of earnest thought, Or ardent feeling, sound from soul hath caught.

SCULPTURE.

I.

Chained to the chariot of triumphant art,

We stand as captives, and would not depart. BYRON.

Nature is perfect, yet can Art improve

On that perfection; for 'tis her's to join
All forms of beauty, and in one combine
Their scattered glories, and each shade remove:
* Lucretius, Lib. V. 1. 1378.

Hence works of art, that mingle awe with love,
Natural, yet superhuman; forms divine,

Yet earth-born, quarried from the living mine
Of truth and grandeur in the artist's soul.

'Tis his on nature's beauties to refine,
Her charms improve, and pour around the whole
The master mind creative; for when such
His noblest work to latest time would give,
The stone, grown flexible beneath his touch,
Breathes silent thought, and marble learns to live.

II.

'Twas but a block of lifeless stone
Angelo, Phidias, wrought upon,
Worthless in other hands;

Yet they could form to sculpture give,
That bade the cold dead marble live,
While earth's foundation stands.

Who that has gazed, in rapture's silent dream,

On thee, O Queen of Love! till, in his sight,
Thy modest charms, with warm emotion teem;
Or hung, in prouder glow of wrapt delight,
On Phœbus, victor in the archer fight;
Laocoon's pain, the Gladiator's gleam
Of sadly parting life; or, down the stream
Floating with time, has fixed his earnest gaze,
On matchless monuments of later days,
His of the Julian tomb and Martyr's fane,
Canova, Chantrey, or the deathless Dane;

Who but has felt that marble, in such strife,
Transcends, in lasting power, the real life ;

Life, matched with highest art, found weak and vain.

PAINTING.

They are,

in truth, the substance, we the shadows.

WORDSWORTH.

Nor less the Painter, with his brush, can spread
Enchantment round him, studious still to trace
Each form of grandeur and supernal grace;
Where light and shade their blended beauties shed
O'er depth and distance, posture, limb, and face;
Till Mind, the great Invisible, portrayed,
Stands brightly forth, in living light arrayed.
Thoughts, evanescent as the frown, or smile,
On beauty's changeful cheek, love, joy, hope, fear,
In lasting colours fixed, unchanging here,
Inform with life the canvass; and beguile
Far distant strangers, ages hence, whose praise
Can ne'er the artist reach, lone laid, the while,
In death's dark realms, unconscious of their gaze.

MORNING WALK.

Go, breathe the morning air, and feel its touch,
On thy wan cheek, more soothing to the soul,
Than sleep, or medicine, to the languid frame.

Though wild scenes charm, yet dearer far to me

The quiet walk, in spring tide, through the glade, At early dawn, when forest birds have made Yon grove harmonious with wild notes of glee.

There, all unseen, I wander in the shade, To gaze on nature, in her charms arrayed, Mid hum of insects, and the murmuring bee; To breathe the freshness of the morning air, With odours, wafted from each budding tree, And opening wild flower, - rich beyond compare, In dewy lustre bright, and perfumed sweet as fair. Existence then is pleasure; and to be

Suffices, in that joyous reverie

Of waking dreams, and thoughts unknown to care.

EVENING WAL K.

I.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, when we are least alone.

BYRON.

Nor less thy charms, O Nature! touch the heart
Of thoughtful youth, what time the balmy air
Of twilight bids his wandering steps repair
To sylvan shades; and draws, with gentle art,
His willing thoughts from grovelling cares apart,
To
gaze on ether, and the lonely star
Of Hesper, urging, in his pearly car,
Through realms of beauty, his unwearied race.
Mind then its piercing glance can send afar,
Past earth's close confines, and the gates unbar
Of highest heaven; while Fancy pants to trace,
In realms unknown of being yet to be,
"Those thoughts that wander through eternity,"
Alike unbounded, or in time, or space.

Deem not such thoughts abstruse unknown to youth : Sense of Infinitude is to the mind

Innate, essential, fixed, though undefined, Its fountain nature, and its issues truth.

Man is not wholly flesh; but deep enshrined Lie powers illimitable, thoughts that dwell Native in man, and indestructible,

The thoughts of boundless wisdom, goodness, power : Rays are they of divinity, a flame,

That to the heavens aspiring, whence it came,

New strength acquires with each revolving hour: Centre and source alike of worth and fame,

Of all that, rising into good or great,

Transcends the narrow bounds of mortal date.

WALK IN WINTER.

I.

Mother severe of infinite delights. THOMPSON.

Tis winter, and the mid-day's dazzling light

Is flashing from the pure incrusted snow: Though cold, yet bracing, are the winds that blow, Grateful to youth, exulting in its might.