| |
| HE sang the airs of olden times | |
| In soft, low tones to sacred rhymes, | |
| Devotional, but quaint; | |
| His fingers touched the viol’s strings, | |
| And at their gentle vibratings | 5 |
| The glory of an angel’s wings | |
| Hung o’er that aged saint! | |
| |
| His thin, white locks, like silver threads | |
| On which the sun its radiance sheds, | |
| Or like the moonlit snow, | 10 |
| Seemed with a lustre half divine | |
| Around his saintly brow to shine, | |
| Till every scar, or time-worn line, | |
| Was gilded with its glow. | |
| |
| His sightless balls to heaven upraised, | 15 |
| As with the spirit’s eyes he gazed | |
| On things invisible— | |
| Reflecting some celestial light— | |
| Were like a tranquil lake at night, | |
| On which two mirrored planets bright | 20 |
| The concave’s glory tell. | |
| |
| Thus, while the patriarchal saint | |
| Devoutly sang to music quaint, | |
| I saw old Homer rise | |
| With buried centuries from the dead, | 25 |
| The laurel green upon his head, | |
| As when the choir of bards he led, | |
| With rapt, but blinded eyes! | |
| |
| And Scio’s isle again looked green, | |
| As when the poet there was seen, | 30 |
| And Greece was in her prime; | |
| While Poesy with epic fire | |
| Did once again the Bard inspire, | |
| As when he swept his mighty lyre | |
| To vibrate through all time. | 35 |
| |
| The vision changed to Albion’s shore: | |
| I saw a sightless Bard once more | |
| From dust of ages rise! | |
| I heard the harp and deathless song | |
| Of glorious Milton float along, | 40 |
| Like warblings from the birds that throng | |
| His muse’s Paradise! | |
| |
| And is it thus, when blindness brings | |
| A veil before all outer things, | |
| That visual spirits see | 45 |
| A world within, than this more bright, | |
| Peopled with living forms of light, | |
| And strewed with gems, as stars of night | |
| Strew diamonds o’er the sea? | |
| |
| Then, reverend saint! though old and blind, | 50 |
| Thou with the quenchless orbs of mind | |
| Canst natural sight o’erreach; | |
| Upborne on Faith’s triumphant wings, | |
| Canst see unutterable things, | |
| Which only through thy viol’s strings, | 55 |
| And in thy songs, find speech. | |
| |
