The business of my life shall be, Forever to remember thee. And though that heart be dead to mine, Of one whom Love had fail'd to warm, THE GENIUS OF HARMONY, AN IRREGULAR ODE. Ad harmoniam canere mundum. THERE lies a shell beneath the waves, Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breathed; This magic shell, From the white bosom of a syren fell, As once she wander'd by the tide that laves 1 In the "Histoire Naturelle des Antilles," there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, 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, parcequ'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé 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 clé, et des notes, qui fermoient 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. xix. 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." -Soma. Scip. Because, says Macrobius, "spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur." -In Semn. Scip., lib. ii. cap. 4. In their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are not very lateligible.-See Ptolem., lib. iii. Leone Hebreo, in pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. "Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et meiproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear, That, through the circle of creation's zone, Murmuring o'er beds of pearl: Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky, Thou'lt wondering own this universe divine That I respire in all and all in me, One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony. Welcome, welcome, mystic shell! O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,' amore, è la lor amicitia armonica et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro."-Dialog. ii. di Amore, p. 58. This "reciprico amore" of Leone is the prλorns 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, Αλλοτε μεν φιλότητι, συνερχομεν', κ. τ. λ., lib. viii. cap. 2, n. 12. 3 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. 5 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. • Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire. 7 Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, Tny SalaTTav μev ekaλei eivaι dakpvov, (De Vitâ ;) and some Since thy aërial spell Now blest I'll fly With the bright treasure to my choral sky, The winged chariot of some blissful soul:" Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee! Thou'lt see a streamlet run, Which I've imbued with breathing melody ;* There, by that wondrous stream, And I will send thee such a godlike dream, one else, if I mistake not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Empedocles, with similar affectation, called the sea "the sweat of the earth :" idpwra rns yns. See Rittershusius upon Porphyry, Num. 41. 1 The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts:ἡ δε Λυρη έπταμιτος εούσα την των κινουμένων αστρων ἁρμονιαν συνεβαλλετο, κ. τ. λ. in Astrolog. 2 Διειλε ψυχάς ισάριθμους τους αστροις, ένειμε 3' έκαστην πрos έKασTOV, Kαι eμßißacas 'NE EIΣ OXHMA.—“ Distributing the souls severally among the stars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot."-Plato, Timaus. Oh! think what visions, in that lonely ho What pious ecstasy Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power, Or, dost thou know what dreams I wov From earthly chain, From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of His spirit flew through fields above, By the great diadem that twines my hair, In a soft iris of harmonious light, Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant d 8 There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificen Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr duced : Ούτος μεν χαλκείον ες ουρανον εστήρικται It is thought by some that these are to be reckone the fabrications, which were frequent in the early Christianity. Still, it appears doubtful to whom th be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and cal for the Fathers. This musical river is mentioned in the romance of In one of the Hymns of Orpheus, he attributes Achilles Tatius. Επει ποταμου . . ην δε ακουσαι θέλης του seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deit bdaros λaλovvros. The Latin version, in supplying the hia-stamped a variety of forms upon the universe. tus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. "In Hispaniâ quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu," &c. &c. 4 These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δίνας έμπεση, το μεν ὕδωρ ὡς χορδη κρούεται, το δε πνευμα του ύδατος πληκτρον γίνεται. το ρευμα δε ὡς κιθαρα λαλει.—Lib. ii. $ Orpheus. • They called his lyre αρχαιότροπον ἐπταχορδον Ορφέως, See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled "Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri."-Lib. iv. cap. 3, p. 177. 7 Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangaan mountain at daybreak, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams.Επεγειρόμενος τε της νυκτός, κατα την έωθινην επι το ορος το καλούμενον Παγγαίον, προσέμενε τας ανατολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ήλιον πρωτον.-Καταστερισμ. 24. | | 10 Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pytha voted the greater part of his days and nights to m and the mysteries of his philosophy. Iamblich, de V as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Mag The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pyth on which they solemnly swore, and which they call acvaov dvoɛws, "the fountain of perennial nature." has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleve Sale of Philosophers. 12 This diadem is intended to represent the an tween the notes of music and the prismatic colors. in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred ha colors and sounds.-Οψις τε και ακοή, μετά φων pros rny áppoviav eñigaivovo.-De Musica. Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to rowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, "Ut oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversi blanditur auditui.” This is indeed the only tolerabi in the letter.-Lib. ii. Variar. 1 See the Story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested by the senator Buonarotti, in his "Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi." He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honor of Love; and accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of pagan superstition, that writers could venture to reveal or discuss such ceremonies. Accordingly, observes this author, we find Lutian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, as well as of Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, to whom we are indebted for the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche, has also detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale Litterati d'Italia, tom. xxvii. articol. 1. See also the ob servations upon the ancient gems in the Museum Florentinum, vol. i. p. 156. I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyche. They say "Pétrone fait un récit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans, (Amour et Psyche.) Déjà, dit-il," &c. &c. The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses, &c. Dissertat. 5. Allusions to Mrs. Tighe's Poem. 3 Constancy. 4 By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence. 1 This poem, as well as a few others that occur afterwards, formed part of a work which I had early projected, and even announced to the public, but which, luckily perhaps for myself, had been interrupted by my visit to America in the year 1803. Among those impostures in which the priests of the pagan temples are known to have indulged, one of the most favorite was that of announcing to some fair votary of the shrine, that the God himself had become enamored of her beauty, and would descend in all his glory, to pay her a visit within the recesses of the fane. An adventure of this description formed an episode in the classic romance which I had sketched out; and the short fragment, given above, belongs to an epistle by which the story was to have been introduced. 2 In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same manner, requires of Chiron some information respecting the fair Cyrene, the Centaur, in obeying, very gravely apologizes for telling the God what his omniscience must know so perfectly already. 3 There is a cave beneath the steep,* Where living rills of crystal weep O'er herbage of the loveliest hue That ever spring begemm'd with dew; There oft the greensward's glossy int Is brighten'd by the recent print Of many a faun and naiad's feet,— Scarce touching earth, their step so flee That there, by moonlight's ray, had tro In light dance, o'er the verdant sod. "There, there," the god, impassion'd, sa "Soon as the twilight tinge is fled, "And the dim orb of lunar souls Ει δε γε χρη και παρ σοφον αντιφεριξαι, Αλλ' εις δαφνωδη γυαλα βήσομαι ταδε. 4 The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mention inhabitants of Parnassus held it sacred to the nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus. See a preceding note, p. 81, n. 2. It should seem th spirits were of a purer order than spirits in ger Pythagoras was said by his followers to have descen the regions of the moon. The heresiarch Manes, in t manner, imagined that the sun and moon are the r of Christ, and that the ascension was nothing more flight to those orbs. The temple of Jupiter Belus, at Babylon; in one o towers there was a large chapel set apart for these assignations. "No man is allowed to sleep here," say otus; "but the apartment is appropriated to a female if we believe the Chaldæan priests, the deity selects women of the country, as his favorite." Lib. i. cap "E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let shine "Such effluence of Love Divine, “As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine." Happy the maid, whom heaven allows To break for heaven her virgin vows! Happy the maid!-her robe of shame Is whiten'd by a heavenly flame, Whose glory, with a ling'ring trace, Shines through and deifies her race!1 FRAGMENT. PITY me, love! I'll pity thee, At night, which was my hour of calm, With wearied sense and wakeful eye: A NIGHT THOUGHT. How oft a cloud, with envious veil, Obscures yon bashful light, Which seems so modestly to steal Along the waste of night! 1 Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned materials of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind which was detected and exposed at Alexandria. See L'Histoire des Oracles, dissert. 2. "Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs Obscure with malice keen Some timid heart, which only longs To live and die unseen THE KISS. GROW to my lip, thou sacred kiss, SONG. THINK on that look whose melting ray Think on thy ev'ry smile and glance, On all thou hast to charm and move; And then forgive my bosom's trance, Nor tell me it is sin to love. Oh, not to love thee were the sin; For sure, if Fate's decrees be done, Thou, thou art destined still to win, As I am destined to be won! chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spiritual beings in a manner rather formidable to the husbands of the island. |