Music

Music

Here Jubal paused; for grim before him lay,
Crouched like a lion watching for his prey,
With blood-red eye of fascinating fire,
Fix'd like the gazing serpent's, on the lyre,
An awful form, that through the gloom appear'd,
Half-brute, half-human; whose terrific beard,
And hoary flakes of long, dishevell'd hair,
Like eagle's plumage ruffled by the air,
Veil'd a sad wreck of grandeur or of grace,
Limbs torn and wounded, a majestic face
Deep-plowed by Time, and ghastly pale with woes,
That goaded till remorse to madness rose;
Haunted by phantoms, he had fled his home,
With savage beasts in solitude to roam;
Wild as the waves, and wandering as the wind,
No art could tame him, and no chains could bind:
Already seven disastrous years had shed
Mildew and blast on his unshelter'd head;
His brain was smitten by the sun at noon,
His heart was withered by the cold night-moon.

Twas Cain, the sire of nations: - Jubal knew
His kindred looks, and tremblingly withdrew;
He, darting like the blaze of sudden fire,
Leap'd o'er the space between, and grasped the lyre:
Sooner with life the struggling bard would part,
And, ere the fiend could tear it from his heart,
He hurl'd his hand, with one tremendous stroke
O'er all the strings; whence in a whirlwind broke
Such tones of terror, dissonance, despair,
As, till that hour, had never jarr'd in air.
Astonished into marble at the shock,
Backward stood Cain, unconscious as a rock,
Cold, breathless, motionless through all his frame:
But soon his visage quickened into flame,
When Jubal's hand the crashing jargon changed
To melting harmony, and nimbly ranged
From chord to chord ascending sweet and clear,
Then rolling down in thunder on the ear;
With power the pulse of anguish to restrain,
And charm the evil spirit from the brain.

Slowly recovering from that trance profound,
Bewilder'd, touch'd transported with the sound,
Cain viewed himself, the bard, the earth, the sky,
While wonder flash'd and faded in his eye;
And reason, by alternate frenzy crost,
Now seem'd restored, and now for ever lost.
So shines the moon by glimpses, through her shrouds,
When windy Darkness rides upon the clouds,
Till through the blue, serene, and silent night,
She reigns in full tranquility of light;
Jubal, with eager hope, beheld the chase
Of strange emotions hurrying o'er his face,
And wak'd his noblest numbers to control
The tide and tempest of the maniac's soul:
Through many a maze of melody they flew,
They rose like incense, they distill'd like dew,
Pour'd through the sufferer's breast delicious balm,
And soothed remembrance till remorse grew calm,
Till Cain forsook the solitary wild,
Led by the minstrel like a weaned child.
Oh! had you seen him to his home restored,
How young and old ran forth to meet their lord;
How friends and kindred on his neck did fall,
Weeping aloud, while Cain outwept them all:
But hush! - thenceforward, when recoiling care
Lower'd on his brow, and sadden'd to despair,
The lyre of Jubal, with divinest art
Repell'd the demon, and revived his heart.
Thus Song, the breath of heaven, had power to bind
In chains of harmony the mightiest mind;
Thus Music's empire in the soul began,
The first-born Poet ruled the first-born Man.

World before the Flood. - Canto VI.

James Montgomery, Esq.

New Series 1:39, p. 4

1840.11.28

World before the Flood. - Canto VI.