| |
| ARIEL to Miranda:—Take | |
| This slave of music, for the sake | |
| Of him, who is the slave of thee; | |
| And teach it all the harmony | |
| In which thou canst, and only thou, | 5 |
| Make the delighted spirit glow, | |
| Till joy denies itself again | |
| And, too intense, is turn’d to pain. | |
| For by permission and command | |
| Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, | 10 |
| Poor Ariel sends this silent token | |
| Of more than ever can be spoken; | |
| Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who | |
| From life to life must still pursue | |
| Your happiness, for thus alone | 15 |
| Can Ariel ever find his own; | |
| From Prospero’s enchanted cell, | |
| As the mighty verses tell, | |
| To the throne of Naples he | |
| Lit you o’er the trackless sea, | 20 |
| Flitting on, your prow before, | |
| Like a living meteor. | |
| When you die, the silent Moon | |
| In her interlunar swoon | |
| Is not sadder in her cell | 25 |
| Than deserted Ariel; | |
| When you live again on earth, | |
| Like an unseen Star of birth | |
| Ariel guides you o’er the sea | |
| Of life from your nativity: | 30 |
| Many changes have been run | |
| Since Ferdinand and you begun | |
| Your course of love, and Ariel still | |
| Has track’d your steps and served your will. | |
| Now in humbler, happier lot, | 35 |
| This is all remember’d not; | |
| And now, alas! the poor sprite is | |
| Imprison’d for some fault of his | |
| In a body like a grave— | |
| From you he only dares to crave | 40 |
| For his service and his sorrow | |
| A smile today, a song tomorrow. | |
| |
| The artist who this idol wrought | |
| To echo all harmonious thought, | |
| Fell’d a tree, while on the steep | 45 |
| The woods were in their winter sleep, | |
| Rock’d in that repose divine | |
| On the wind-swept Apennine; | |
| And dreaming, some of autumn past, | |
| And some of spring approaching fast, | 50 |
| And some of April buds and showers, | |
| And some of songs in July bowers, | |
| And all of love: And so this tree,— | |
| Oh that such our death may be!— | |
| Died in sleep, and felt no pain, | 55 |
| To live in happier form again: | |
| From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star, | |
| The artist wrought this loved Guitar; | |
| And taught it justly to reply | |
| To all who question skilfully | 60 |
| In language gentle as thine own; | |
| Whispering in enamour’d tone | |
| Sweet oracles of woods and dells, | |
| And summer winds in sylvan cells; | |
| —For it had learnt all harmonies | 65 |
| Of the plains and of the skies, | |
| Of the forests and the mountains, | |
| And the many-voice´d fountains; | |
| The clearest echoes of the hills, | |
| The softest notes of falling rills, | 70 |
| The melodies of birds and bees, | |
| The murmuring of summer seas, | |
| And pattering rain, and breathing dew | |
| And airs of evening; and it knew | |
| That seldom-heard mysterious sound | 75 |
| Which, driven on its diurnal round, | |
| As it floats through boundless day, | |
| Our world enkindles on its way: | |
| —All this it knows, but will not tell | |
| To those who cannot question well | 80 |
| The spirit that inhabits it; | |
| It talks according to the wit | |
| Of its companions; and no more | |
| Is heard than has been felt before | |
| By those who tempt it to betray | 85 |
| These secrets of an elder day. | |
| But, sweetly as its answers will | |
| Flatter hands of perfect skill, | |
| It keeps its highest holiest tone | |
| For our beloved Friend alone. | 90 |
| |
