_For the Table Book._
How many thoughts from thee I cull,
Music’s humblest vehicle!
From thy caravan of sounds,
Constant in its daily rounds,
Some such pleasure do I find
As when, borne upon the wind,
The well-known “bewilder’d chimes”
Plaintively recall those times,
(Long since lost in sorrow’s shade,)
When, in some sequester’d glade,
Their simple, stammering tongues would try
Some heart-moving melody.--
Oldest musical delight
Of my boyish days! the sight
Or sound of thee would charm my feet,
And make my joy of heart complete--
How thou luredst listeners
To thy crazy, yearning airs!--
Harmonious, grumbling volcano!
Murm’ring sounds in small _piano_,
Or screaming forth a shrill _soprano_,
Mingled with the growling bass.
Fragments of some air I trace,
Stifled by the notes which cram it--
Scatter’d ruins of the gamut!--
Sarcophagus of harmony!
Orpheus’ casket! guarded by
A swain who lives by what he earns
From the music which he churns:
Every note thou giv’st _by turns_.--
Not Pindar’s lyre more variety
Possess’d than thou! no cloy’d satiety
Feel’st thou at thy perpetual feast
Of sound; nor weariness the least:
Thy task’s perform’d with right goodwill.--
Thou art a melodious mill!
Notes, like grain, are dribbled in,
Thou _grindest_ them, and fill’st the bin
Of melody with plenteous store.
Thy tunes are like the parrot’s lore,
Nothing of them dost thou wot,
But repeatest them by rote.--
Curious, docile instrument!
To skilless touch obedient:
Like a mine of richest ore,
Inexhaustible in store,
Yielding at a child’s command
All thy wealth unto its hand.
Harmonicon peripatetic!
What clue to notes so oft erratic
Hast thou, by which the ear may follow
Through thy labyrinthine hollow,
Which its own echo dost consume,
As stoves devour their own fume.--
Mysterious fabric! cage-like chest!
Behind whose gilded bars the nest
Of unfledg’d melodies is hid
’Neath that brazen coverlid.--
In thy bondage-house of song,
Bound in brazen fetters strong,
Immortal harmonies do groan!
Doleful sounds their stifled moan.
A vulture preys upon their pangs,
Round whose neck their prison hangs,
Like that tenanted strong box
By eagle found upon the rocks
Of Brobdingnag’s gigantic isle.
Like Sysiphus, their endless toil
Is hopeless: their tormentor’s claw
Turns the wheel (his will’s their law)
Which all their joints and members racks,
Ne’er will his cruelty relax.--
Miniature in shape and sound
Of that grand instrument, which round
Old cathedral walls doth send
Its pealing voice; whose tones do blend
The clangor of the trumpet’s throat,
And the silver-stringed lute.--
To what else shall I compare thee?--
Further epithets I’ll spare thee.
Honest and despised thing,
To thy memory I cling.
Spite of all thy faults, I own
I love thy “old, familiar” tone.