Poems of Felicia Hemans in The Pledge of Friendship, 1828/A Strain of Music
Title from The Lyre, 1841
Poem from a review in Spirit and Manners of the Age, 1827, Vol IV, page 304
A STRAIN OF MUSIC.
BY MRS. HEMANS.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Merchant of Venice.
Oh! joyously, triumphantly, sweet sounds! ye swell and float,
A breath of hope, of youth, of spring, is poured on every note;
And yet my full o'erburthened heart grows troubled by your power,
And ye seem to press the long past years into one little hour.
If I have look'd on lovely scenes, that now I view no more—
A summer sea, with glittering ships, along the mountain shore;
A ruin, girt with solemn woods, and a crimson evening sky,—
Ye bring me back those images fast as ye wander by.
If in the happy walks and days of childhood, I have heard,
And unto childhood's memory link'd, the music of a bird—
A bird that with the primrose came, and in the violet's train;
Ye give me that wild melody of early life again.
Or if a dear and gentle voice, that now is changed or gone,
Hath left within my bosom deep the thrilling of its tone;
I find that murmur in your notes—they touch the chords of thought,
And a sudden flow of tenderness across my soul is brought.
If I have bid a spot farewell, on whose familiar ground,
To every path, and leaf, and flower, my soul in love was bound;
If I have watch'd the parting step of one who came not back—
The feeling of that moment wakes in your exulting track.
Yet on ye float! the very air seems kindling with your glee!
Oh! do ye fling this mournful spell, sweet sounds! alone with me?
Or, have a thousand hearts replied, as mine doth now, in sighs,
To the glad music breathing thus of blue Italian skies!
I know not!—only this I know, that not by me on earth,
May the deep joy of song be found untroubled in its birth;
It must be for a brighter life—for some immortal sphere,
Wherein its flow shall have no taste of the bitter fountains here.