But who is He shall put his daring hand To Love’s mysterious Harp, and with rude touch Discordant violate the silver string Whose note is sweeter than the balmy South Impregn’d with soft Æolian harmony! The Song of Love is like an Angel’s voice Attuned to heavenly music; and once heard On this Terrestrial; when the Bard of Thrace Bewail’d his lost Euridice, it drew The wild Inhabitants to hear his Lyre;— Yea savage Beasts and Things inanimate To listen to his dulcet melody:— Such power is in the magic sounds of Love. THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE. O for the thousand flowers that erst did bloom In that Sicilian Valley wild, Where golden Ceres left her Child Conceal’d from all the Sons of Jove, So to elude th’ inevitable doom Of Fate, and stronger Love! In vain.—The grisly Monarch of the Dead, Stern Dis, uprears his gloomy head Mid the black smoke and ruddy flames that wrap Around old Ætna’s smould’ring top; There, as the wandering Nymph he view’d, Awhile in blank amaze he stood Till Love to fury roused his blood. He call’d his ebon Car and Steeds of fire: They came, and with the headlong torrent’s speed Down to the lily-spangled mead They bore their mighty Sire: Swift in his arms the fainting Maid he took, Then drove impetuous on, while all Sicilia shook. SONNET. O thou, to whom my heart (no longer mine) Doth yield itself a captive love-subdued; Fair goodly frame of Nature’s work divine To inchase the gem thy mind more fair and good, Let not thy scorn pursue the Muse’s Son, For gentle is his mind, and pure his flame, And for thy love he shall inscribe thy name Among those Fair whose peerless beauty won Renown from ancient bards, on harp and lyre So sweetly sounded, that the wondering Earth, Thro’ all her climes, yet listens to the strain. O meekly-blooming Flower, if on thy birth Soft Pity shed her dew, quench not his fire, Quench not his hallow’d fire with cold disdain. SONG. When PHŒBUS, for what crime unknown, Was exiled from the Courts of Jove, And to this earth came mournful down, Of all things else bereft, but love; (For that pure Fire feels not the storms That shake or change this worldly frame; Immortal as the soul it warms, It burns in unextinguish’d flame—) His fingers to the lyre he turn’d, Then all with chords of sorrow strung; The lost delights of heaven he mourn’d, But more her loss, for whom he sung: He sung so sweetly that the strain Drew pity from the gods above; They call’d the wanderer back again, And gave the MUSE to crown his love. SONG. To thy cliffs, rocky SEATON, adieu! And adieu to the roar of thy seas! And adieu to the Girl, whose insensible heart Is as hard and as sullen as these!