KEENE Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on; I thought to see thy children Thy kindred's graves among; I shall hear the tall grass whisper-- Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on; And I, too, shall find slumber With my lost one in the earth;— Let none light up the ashes Again on our hearth! Let the roof go down !-let silence On the home for ever fall, Where my boy lay cold, and heard not His lone mother's call! Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on; 209 THE MUSIC OF ST PATRICK'S [THE choral music of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, is almost unrivalled in its combined powers of voice, organ, and scientific skill. The majestic harmony of effect thus produced is not a little deepened by the character of the church itself, which, though small, yet with its dark rich fretwork, knightly helmets and banners, and old monumental effigies, seems all filled and overshadowed by the spirit of chivalrous antiquity. The imagination never fails to recognise it as a fitting scene for high solemnities of old-a place to witness the solitary vigil of arms, or to resound with the funeral march at the burial of some warlike king.] "All the choir Sang Hallelujah, as the sound of seas."-MILTON. AGAIN! oh! send that anthem-peal again Through the arched roof in triumph to the sky! Such sounds the warrior awe-struck might have heard, Such the high hearts of kings might well have stirred, While throbbing still beneath the recent crown! These notes once more! they bear my soul away, They lend the wings of morning to its flight; No earthly passion in the exulting lay All is of Heaven! Yet wherefore to mine eye Gush the vain tears unbidden from their source, Roll with my spirit on their sounding course? THE LONELY BIRD Wherefore must rapture its full heart reveal 211 THE LONELY BIRD FROM a ruin thou art singing, By thy summer music stirred. Where harps no more are heard : Thy songs flow richly swelling As from its cavern-dwelling A stream in glory bounds Though the castle-echoes catch no tone Of human step or word, Tho' the fires be quenched and the feasting done, O lonely, lonely bird! How can that flood of gladness Rush through thy fiery lay, From the haunted place of sadness, From the bosom of decay— While the dirge-notes in the breeze's moan, Through the ivy garlands heard, Come blent with thy rejoicing tone, O lonely, lonely bird? There's many a heart, wild singer! Where Love hath left his bower: THE IVY SONG OH! how could fancy crown with thee, Ivy thy home is where each sound Where long-fallen gods recline, The Roman on his battle-plains, Where kings before his eagles bent, With thee, amidst exulting strains, Shadowed the victor's tent. Though shining there in deathless green Triumphantly thy boughs might wave, Better thou lov'st the silent scene Around the victor's grave Urn and sculpture half divine THE IVY-SONG The cold halls of the regal dead, Where lone the Italian sunbeams dwell, Where hollow sounds the lightest tread Ivy they know thee well! And far above the festal vine 213 Thou wav'st where once proud banners hung, Where mouldering turrets crest the RhineThe Rhine, still fresh and young! Tower and rampart o'er the Rhine, High from the fields of air look down But thou art there! - serenely bright, Ivy Ivy all are thine, Palace, hearth, and shrine, 'Tis still the same: our pilgrim-tread O'er classic plains, through deserts free, On the mute path of ages fled, Still meets decay and thee. And still let man his fabrics rear, August in beauty, stern in power- Days pass, thou Ivy never sere! And thou shalt have thy dower. All are thine, or must be thine- |