| |
| WHEN thro’ life unblest we rove, | |
| Losing all that made life dear, | |
| Should some notes we used to love | |
| In days of boyhood, meet our ear, | |
| Oh! how welcome breathes the strain! | 5 |
| Wakening thoughts that long have slept; | |
| Kindling former smiles again | |
| In faded eyes that long have wept. | |
| |
| Like the gale, that sighs along | |
| Beds of Oriental flowers, | 10 |
| Is the grateful breath of song, | |
| That once was heard in happier hours; | |
| Filled with balm, the gale sighs on, | |
| Though the flowers have sunk in death; | |
| So, when pleasure’s dream is gone, | 15 |
| Its memory lives in Music’s breath. | |
| |
| Music! oh how faint, how weak | |
| Language fades before thy spell! | |
| Why should Feeling ever speak, | |
| When thou canst breathe her soul so well? | 20 |
| Friendship’s balmy words may feign, | |
| Love’s are even more false than they; | |
| Oh! ’tis only Music’s strain | |
| Can sweetly soothe, and not betray. | |
| |
