Three Popular Lectures: One on Natural History and Two on National Melody

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Page 36 - The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music...
Page 61 - Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears...
Page 51 - And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, . Married to immortal verse ; Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes, with many a winding bout Of linke"d sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning ; The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony ; That Orpheus...
Page 8 - Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Form'd turret, dome, or battlement, Or seem'd fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lack'd they many a banner fair; For, from their shiver'd brows display'd, Far o'er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the...
Page 26 - I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
Page 58 - Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm'd and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken!
Page 36 - By the sweet power of music : therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods ; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature.
Page 8 - The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o'er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path, in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.
Page 37 - Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy ; for it removes from the heart the weight of sorrow and the fascination of evil thoughts.
Page 37 - ... the solemn and divine harmonies of music heard or learned, either whilst the skilful organist plies his grave and fancied descant in lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well-studied chords of some choice composer; sometimes the lute or soft organ-stop waiting on elegant voices either to religious, martial, or civil ditties, which, if wise men and prophets be not extremely out, have a great power over dispositions and manners to smooth and...

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