None can tell how sweet, How virtuous, the morning air; Every accent vibrates well; Not alone the wood-bird's call, Or shouting boys that chase their ball, Pass the height of minstrel skill, But the ploughman's thoughtless cry, Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat, And the joiner's hammer-beat, Softened are above their will. All grating discords melt, No dissonant note is dealt, And though thy voice be shrill Like rasping file on steel, Such is the temper of the air, Echo waits with art and care, And will the faults of song repair. So by remote Superior Lake, And by resounding Mackinac, When northern storms and forests shake, And billows on the long beach break, The artful Air doth separate Note by note all sounds that grate, Smothering in her ample breast All but godlike words, Reporting to the happy ear Only purified accords. Strangely wrought from barking waves, Soft music daunts the Indian braves,-- Convent-chanting which the child Hears pealing from the panther's cave And the impenetrable wild. One musician is sure, His wisdom will not fail, He has not tasted wine impure, Nor bent to passion frail. Age cannot cloud his memory, Nor grief untune his voice, Ranging down the ruled scale From tone of joy to inward wail, Tempering the pitch of all In his windy cave. He all the fables knows, And in their causes tells,-- Knows Nature's rarest moods, Ever on her secret broods. The Muse of men is coy, Oft courted will not come; In palaces and market squares Entreated, she is dumb; But my minstrel knows and tells The counsel of the gods, Knows of Holy Book the spells, Knows the law of Night and Day, And the heart of girl and boy, The tragic and the gay, And what is writ on Table Round Of Arthur and his peers, What sea and land discoursing say In sidereal years. He renders all his lore In numbers wild as dreams, Modulating all extremes,-- What the spangled meadow saith To the children who have faith; Only to children children sing, Only to youth will spring be spring. Who is the Bard thus magnified? When did he sing, and where abide? Chief of song where poets feast Is the wind-harp which thou seest In the casement at my side.