Lighted me back to all the glorious days
Of Attic genius; and I seem'd to gaze
On marble, from the rich Pentelic mount,
Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount.

Sweet airy being !* who, in brighter hours,
Liv'd on the perfume of these honied bowers,
In velvet buds, at evening, lov'd to lie,
And win with music every rose's sigh!
Though weak the magic of my humble strain,
To charm your spirit from its orb again,
Yet, oh! for her, beneath whose smile I sing,
For her (whose pencil, if your rainbow wing
Were dimm'd or ruffled by a wintry sky,
Could smooth its feather and relume its dye)
A moment wander from your starry sphere,
And if the lime-tree grove that once was dear,
The sunny wave, the bower, the breezy hill,
The sparkling grotto can delight you still,
Oh! take their fairest tint, their softest light,
Weave all their beauty into dreams of night,

me to visit him. He was a plain good man, and received me well and warmly, but I never could turn his house into a Grecian temple again.

* Ariel. Among the many charms which Bermuda has for a poetic eye, we cannot for an instant forget that it is the scene of 'Shakspeare's Tempest, and that here he conjured up the "delicate Ariel," who alone is worth the whole heaven of ancient mythology.

And, while the lovely artist slumbering lies,
Shed the warm picture o'er her mental eyes;
Borrow for sleep her own creative spells,
And brightly shew what song but faintly tells!

THE

GENIUS OF HARMONY.

AN IRREGULAR ODE.

AD HARMONIAM CANERE MUNDUM.

Vide Cicero. de Nat. Deor. Lib. 3.

THERE lies a shell beneath the waves,
In many a hollow winding wreath'd,

Such as of old

Echo'd the breath that warbling sea-maids breath'd;
This magic shell

From the white bosom of a syren fell,

As once she wander'd by the tide that laves
Sicilia's sands of gold.

It bears

Upon its shining side the mystic notes

Of those entrancing airs,*

The genii of the deep were wont to swell, When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music roll'd!

* In L'Histoire naturelle des Antilles, there is an account of some eurious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were

Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;
And, if the power

Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,

Go, bring the bright shell to my bower, And I will fold thee in such downy dreams, As lap the spirit of the seventh sphere,

When Luna's distant tone falls faintly on his ear!*

Kines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. "On le nomme musical, par ce qu'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clef pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clef et des notes, qui formoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable." Chap. 19, Art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts.

* According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. "Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus." Somn. Scip. Because, says Macrobius, "spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur." In Somn. Scip. Lib. 2, Cap. 4. It is not very easy to understand the ancients in their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies. See Ptolem. Lib. 3.

Leone Hebreo, pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. "Non però manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il lorò amore, è la lor amicitia harmoniaca & la concordantia che perpetuamente si trova in loro." Dialog. 2, di

And thou shalt own,

That, through the circle of creation's zone,
Where matter darkles or where spirit beams;
From the pellucid tides,* that whirl
The planets through their maze of song,
To the small rill, that weeps along

Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;
From the rich sigh

Of the sun's arrow through an ev'ning sky,t
To the faint breath the tuneful osier yields
On Afric's burning fields;‡

Amore, p. 58. This "reciproco amore" of Leone is the

ors of the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laertius, AXλOTÉ μεν φιλότητι, συνηρχομεν. κ. τ. λ. Lib. 8, Cap. 2, n. 12.

* Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes.

† Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.

In the account of Africa, which d'Ablancourt has translated, there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches, when shaken by the hand, produce very sweet sounds. "Le même auteur (Abenzégar) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'osier, et qu'en les prenant à la main, et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable," &c. &c. L'Afrique de Marmol.