On Music
When through life unblest we rove,Losing all that made life dear,Should some notes we used to love,In days of boyhood, meet our ear,Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!Wakening thoughts that long have slept,Kindling former smiles againIn faded eyes that long have wept.
Like the gale, that sighs alongBeds of oriental flowers,Is the grateful breath of song,That once was heard in happier hours.Fill'd with balm the gale sighs on,Though the flowers have sunk in death;So, when pleasure's dream is gone,Its memory lives in Music's breath.
Music, oh, how faint, how weak,Language fades before thy spell!Why should Feeling ever speak,When thou canst breathe her soul so well?Friendship's balmy words may feign,Love's are even more false than they;Oh! 'tis only music's strainCan sweetly soothe, and not betray.
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