The humorous strings expound his learned touch By various glosses; now they seem to grutch And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single; Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke, Gives life to some new grace: thus doth he invoke Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus— Fraught with a fury so harmonious— The lute’s light Genius now does proudly rise, Heaved on the surges of swoll’n rhapsodies, Whose flourish, meteor-like, doth curl the air With flash of high-born fancies; here and there Dancing in lofty measures, and anon Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone, Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs, Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares; Because those precious mysteries that dwell In music’s ravished soul he dare not tell, But whisper to the world: thus do they vary, Each string his note, as if they meant to carry Their master’s blest soul, snatched out at his ears By a strong ecstasy, through all the spheres Of music’s heaven; and seat it there on high In th’ _empyræum_ of pure harmony. At length—after so long, so loud a strife Of all the strings, still breathing the best life Of blest variety, attending on His fingers’ fairest revolution, In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall— A full-mouthed diapason swallows all. This done, he lists what she would say to this; And she, although her breath’s late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat, Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note. Alas, in vain! for while, sweet soul, she tries To measure all those wild diversities Of chatt’ring strings, by the small size of one Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone, She fails; and failing, grieves; and grieving, dies; She dies, and leaves her life the victor’s prize, Falling upon his lute. O, fit to have— That lived so sweetly—dead, so sweet a grave! THE FLAMING HEART _Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint_ _Teresa_, _as she is usually expressed with_ _a Seraphim beside her_