Prince Amadis: 241ÔÇô250
CCXLI.
He knew every chord that the rich wind could change,
Its loud, and its soft, and its musical range,
From the storms of the night to the songs it will sing
As it sinks to an almost inaudible thing.
CCXLII.
Sound is a language of beauty for ever,
From the sigh of the reeds to the dash of the river,
From the plaintive soul prisoned within the pine tree
To the foam effervescing on a wave out at sea.
CCXLIII.
The piping of wild-fowl was music to him,
As it rose from the marsh, fenny, sedgy, and dim.
Though it sounded sometimes, long haunting the ear,
Too like human anguish, too word-like, too clear.
CCXLIV.
Yet the shouts of the gulls to the deaf storms complaining,
Their shrieks, and their oaths 'gainst the strong winds maintaining,
Were excitement at times, in the sea-sounding ear,
As if the wild woes of all shipwrecks were there.
CCXLV.
Even sounds out of harmony filled him with wonder,
Like the cry of the curlew in the middle of thunder,
Inopportune sounds, or sounds cursed from their birth,
Like unmusical souls among men upon earth.
CCXLVI.
There was one sound of sweetness he loved and he feared,
Which full oft in the oak-groves of summer was heard;
'Twas a thing close to tears, and it made him turn pale, —
The half-human soul of the grieved nightingale.
CCXLVII.
He lay long to listen in caves, where the swell
Of the sea-murmur sings, like the air in a shell,
Now idyll, now elegy, storm-ode or pean,
Mid the cavernous isles of the classic Egean.
CCXLVIII.
Where the mountains were folded one over another,
And the hanging woods the echoes smother,
He loved the sea's voice, where its courage fails,
Speaking low, like a stranger, in inland vales.
CCXLIX.
He discovered that time made a sound in its going,
A tremulous ringing, a rhythmical flowing,
Slowest at noon, as if day in its net
Caught the sun for awhile ere he slanted to set.
CCL.
He wrapt his soul round in each kind of perfume
From the bright open gardens or close forest gloom,
And he saw how within him each fragrance was mother
Of a brood of soft thoughts that was like to no other.
He knew every chord that the rich wind could change,
Its loud, and its soft, and its musical range,
From the storms of the night to the songs it will sing
As it sinks to an almost inaudible thing.
CCXLII.
Sound is a language of beauty for ever,
From the sigh of the reeds to the dash of the river,
From the plaintive soul prisoned within the pine tree
To the foam effervescing on a wave out at sea.
CCXLIII.
The piping of wild-fowl was music to him,
As it rose from the marsh, fenny, sedgy, and dim.
Though it sounded sometimes, long haunting the ear,
Too like human anguish, too word-like, too clear.
CCXLIV.
Yet the shouts of the gulls to the deaf storms complaining,
Their shrieks, and their oaths 'gainst the strong winds maintaining,
Were excitement at times, in the sea-sounding ear,
As if the wild woes of all shipwrecks were there.
CCXLV.
Even sounds out of harmony filled him with wonder,
Like the cry of the curlew in the middle of thunder,
Inopportune sounds, or sounds cursed from their birth,
Like unmusical souls among men upon earth.
CCXLVI.
There was one sound of sweetness he loved and he feared,
Which full oft in the oak-groves of summer was heard;
'Twas a thing close to tears, and it made him turn pale, —
The half-human soul of the grieved nightingale.
CCXLVII.
He lay long to listen in caves, where the swell
Of the sea-murmur sings, like the air in a shell,
Now idyll, now elegy, storm-ode or pean,
Mid the cavernous isles of the classic Egean.
CCXLVIII.
Where the mountains were folded one over another,
And the hanging woods the echoes smother,
He loved the sea's voice, where its courage fails,
Speaking low, like a stranger, in inland vales.
CCXLIX.
He discovered that time made a sound in its going,
A tremulous ringing, a rhythmical flowing,
Slowest at noon, as if day in its net
Caught the sun for awhile ere he slanted to set.
CCL.
He wrapt his soul round in each kind of perfume
From the bright open gardens or close forest gloom,
And he saw how within him each fragrance was mother
Of a brood of soft thoughts that was like to no other.
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