Slowly the shadows of the clouds drift o'er

The hillsides, clad in opal haze, Where gorgeous butterflies seek the rich store

Of flower-sprent summer days.

All clad in dusted gold, the tall elms stand

Just in the edges of the wood; And near, the chestnut sentinels the land,

And shows its russet hood,

The maple flaunts its scarlet banners where

The marsh lies clad in shining mist; The mountain oak shows, in the clear, bright air,

Its crown of amethyst.

Where, like a silver line, the sparkling stream

Flows murmuring, through the meadows brown,

Amid the radiance, seeming a sad dream,

A sailless boat floats down.

COMPLETE.

LIKE morning blooms that meet the

sun

With all the fragrant freshness won
From night's repose, and kiss of dew
Which the bright radiance glistens
through,

Such is the sweetness of thy lips,
Where love its sacred tribute sips:
Such is the glory of thine eyes,
Rich with the soul's unsaid replies.

The snow that crowns the mountain
height,
[white;
Through countless years of gleaming
The creamy blooms of orchard trees,
Full of the melody of bees;
The cool, fresh sweetness of the sea;
All have a charm possessed by thee:
But each of these has one alone,
Whilst thou canst call them all thine
own.

Though taste, though genius, bless, To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole;

What each, what all supply, May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.

'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake,

The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake!

But where the force of energy is found,

When the sense rises on the wings of sound;

When reason, with the charms of music twined,

Through the enraptured ear informs the mind;

Bids generous love or soft compassion glow,

And forms a tuneful Paradise below!

ODE TO THE BRAVE.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blessed!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould.

She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

ÓN TRUE AND FALSE TASTE IN MUSIC.

DISCARD Soft nonsense in a slavish tongue,

The strain insipid, and the thought unknown;

From truth and nature form the unerring test;

Be what is manly, chaste, and good the best!

'Tis not to ape the songsters of the groves,

Through all the quivers of their wanton loves;

THE PASSIONS.

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was

young,

While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
fired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of
sound:

And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for Madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive

power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,

Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings;

In one rude clash he struck the lyre, And swept with hurried hands the strings.

Revenge impatient rose; He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down;

And with a withering look, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!

And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum, with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien, While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired;
And, from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more
sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the nin gled measures stole,

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how altered was its spright

lier tone,

When Cheerfulness, healthiest hue,

a nymph of

Her bow across her shoulder flung Her buskins gemmed with morning Blew an inspiring air, that dale and dew,

thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and
Dryad known!

The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green:

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing.

First to the lively pipe his hand But soon he saw the brik awakening addrest; viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain

They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,

Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;

And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay,

Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid! Why, goddess! why, to us denied, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As, in that loved Athenian bower, You learned an all-commanding

power, Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared, Can well recall what then it heard; Where is thy native simple heart, Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that godlike age, Fill thy recording sister's page 'Tis said, and I believe the tale, Thy humblest reed could more prevail,

Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age;

E'en all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound
O bid our vain endeavors cease;
Revive the just designs of Greece:
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

ODE TO EVENING.

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,

Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star, arising shows

His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;

Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That, from the mountain's side, Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.