A Voice to Light gave Being;[593] To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler; 210 A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing, And sweep away life's visionary stir; The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride, Arm at its blast for deadly wars) To archangelic lips applied, 215 The grave shall open, quench the stars.[594] O Silence! are Man's noisy years No more than moments of thy life?[595] Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears, With her smooth tones and discords just, 220 Tempered into rapturous strife, Thy destined bond-slave? No! though earth be dust And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay Is in the WORD, that shall not pass away.[596] FOOTNOTES: [571] 1836. STANZAS ON ... 1835. [572] Compare Gray's _Elegy_, l. 39.--ED. [573] Compare _L'Allegro_, II. 135-37-- And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse. ED. [574] The deception of the senses.--ED. [575] Orpheus, is search of his lost Eurydice, gained admittance with his lyre to the infernal regions. Pluto was charmed with his music, the wheel of Ixion stopped, the stone of Sisyphus stood still, Tantalus forgot his thirst, and the Furies relented, while Pluto and Proserpine consented to restore Eurydice. The sequel is well known.--ED. [576] The fable of Amphion moving stones and raising the walls of Thebes by his melody is explained by supposing him gifted with an eloquence and power of persuasion that roused the savage people to rise and build the town of Thebes.--ED. [577] The story of Arion, lyric poet and musician of Lesbos, was that having gone into Italy, settled there, and grown rich, he wished to revisit his native country, taking some of his fortune with him. The sailors of the ship determined to murder him, and steal his treasure. He asked, as a last favour, that he might play a tune on his lyre. As soon as he began he attracted the creatures of the deep, and leaping into the sea, one of the dolphins carried him, lyre in hand, to the shore.--ED. [578] Compare _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, act II. scene i. l. 150.--ED. [579] Mænalus, a mountain in Arcadia, sacred to Pan, covered with pine trees, a favourite haunt of shepherds.--See Virgil, _Eclogues_, viii. 24; _Georgics_, i. 17; Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, i. 216.--ED. [580] Compare Gray's _Progress of Poesy_, ll. 33-35.--ED. [581] In his expedition to the East, Bacchus was clothed in a panther's skin. He was accompanied by all the Satyrs, and by Silenus crowned with flowers and almost always intoxicated.--ED. [582] I have been unable to trace this quotation.--ED. [583] The nightingale.--ED. [584] Compare _To the Cuckoo_, vol. ii. p. 289-- A wandering Voice.--ED. [585] 1836.