Thou sweet musician, that around my bed Dost nightly come and wind thy little horn, By what unseen and secret influence led, Feed'st thou my ear with music till 'tis morn? The wind harp's tones are not more soft than thine, The hum of falling waters not more sweet, I own, _indeed_, I own thy song divine. And when next year's warm summer nights we meet, (Till then, farewell!) I promise thee to be A patient listener to thy minstrelsy. Thou tiny minstrel, who bid thee discourse Such eloquent music? was't thy tuneful sire? Some old musician? or did'st take a course Of lessons from some master of the lyre? Who bid thee twang so sweetly thy small trump? Did Norton form thy notes so clear and full? Art a phrenologist, and is the bump Of song developed on thy little skull? At Niblo's hast thou been when crowds stood mute Drinking the birdlike tones of Cuddy's flute? Tell me the burden of thy ceaseless song, Is it thy evening hymn of grateful prayer, Or lay of love, thou pipest through the long Still night? With song dost drive away dull care? Art thou a vieux garçon, a gay deceiver, A wandering blade, roaming in search of sweets, Pledging thy faith to every fond believer, Who thy advance with half-way shyness meets? Or art o' the softer sex, and sing'st in glee, "In maiden meditation, fancy free?" Thou little Syren, when the nymphs of yore Charmed with their songs till men forgot to dine, And starved, though music-fed, upon their shore, Their voices breathed no softer lays than thine, They sang but to entice, and thou dost sing As if to lull our senses to repose, That thou may'st use, unharmed, thy little sting The very moment we begin to doze; Thou worse than Syren, thirsty, fierce blood-sipper, Thou living Vampyre, and thou Gallinipper! Nature is full of music, sweetly sings The bard, (and thou dost sing most sweetly too,) Through the wide circuit of created things, Thou art the living proof the bard sings true. Nature is full of thee; on every shore, 'Neath the hot sky of Congo's dusky child, From warm Peru to icy Labrador, The world's free citizen thou roamest wild. Wherever "mountains rise or oceans roll," Thy voice is heard, from "Indus to the Pole." The incarnation of Queen Mab art thou, "The Fairies' midwife;"--thou dost nightly sip, With amorous proboscis bending low, The honey dew from many a lady's lip-- (Though that they "straight on kisses dream," I doubt) On smiling faces, and on eyes that weep, Thou lightest, and oft with "sympathetic snout" "Ticklest men's noses as they lie asleep;" And sometimes dwellest, if I rightly scan, "On the fore-finger of an alderman."