MIDNIGHT MUSIC.
The Rev. Mr. George Herbert, in one of his walks to Salisbury, to join a musical society, saw a poor man, with a poorer horse, who had fallen under its load. Putting off his canonical coat, he helped the poor man to unload, and raise the horse, and afterwards to load him again. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man. And so like was he to the good Samaritan, that he gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse, admonishing him also, "if he loved himself, to be merciful to his beast." Then, coming to his musical friends, at Salisbury, they began to wonder, that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be always so trim and clean, should come into that company, so soiled and discomposed. Yet, when he told them the reason, one of them said, that he had "disparaged himself, by so mean an employment." But his answer was, that the thought of what he had done, would prove music to him at midnight, and that the omission of it, would have made discord in his conscience, whenever he should pass that place. "For if, said he, I am bound to pray for all that are in distress, I am surely bound, so far as is in my power, to practise what I pray for. And though I do not wish for the like occasion, every day, yet would I not willingly pass one day of my life, without comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy, and I praise God, for this opportunity. So now let us tune our instruments."
What maketh music, when the bird
Doth hush its merry lay?
And the sweet spirit of the flowers
Hath sigh'd itself away?
What maketh music when the frost
Enchains the murmuring rill,
And every song that summer woke
In winter's trance is still?
What maketh music when the winds
To wild encounter rise,
When Ocean strikes his thunder-gong,
And the rent cloud replies?
While no adventurous planet dares
The midnight arch to deck,
And in its startled dream, the babe
Doth clasp its mother's neck?
