Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
  Now sublimest triumph swelling,
  Now on love and mercy dwelling;
  And she, from out the veiling cloud,
  Breathed her magic notes aloud,
  And thou, thou rich-haired Youth of Morn,
  And all thy subject life, was born! 
  The dangerous passions kept aloof,
  Far from the sainted growing woof: 
  But near it sate ecstatic Wonder,
  Listening the deep applauding thunder;
  And Truth, in sunny vest arrayed,
  By whose the tarsel’s eyes were made;
  All the shadowy tribes of mind,
  In braided dance, their murmurs joined,
  And all the bright uncounted powers
  Who feed on heaven’s ambrosial flowers. 
  Where is the bard whose soul can now
  Its high presuming hopes avow? 
  Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
  This hallowed work for him designed?

  ANTISTROPHE

  High on some cliff, to heaven up-piled,
  Of rude access, of prospect wild,
  Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
  Strange shades o’erbrow the valleys deep. 
  And holy genii guard the rock,
  Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,
  While on its rich ambitious head
  An Eden, like his own, lies spread,

  I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
  By which as Milton lay, his evening ear,
  From many a cloud that dropped ethereal dew,
  Nigh sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear,
  On which that ancient trump he reached was hung: 
  Thither oft, his glory greeting,
  From Waller’s myrtle shades retreating,
  With many a vow from Hope’s aspiring tongue,
  My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;
  In vain—­such bliss to one alone
  Of all the sons of soul was known,
  And Heaven and Fancy, kindred powers,
  Have now o’erturned th’ inspiring bowers,
  Or curtained close such scene from every future view.

  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,
  Possessed beyond the Muse’s painting;
  By turns they felt the glowing mind
  Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined: 

  Till once, ’tis said, when all were fired,
  Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
  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 in hand, its skill to try,
  Amid the chords bewildered laid,
  And back recoiled, he knew not why,
  Even 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 hand the strings.