(The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their muse, their siren, harmless siren she): There stood she listening, and did entertain The music's soft report, and mold the same In her own murmurs; that whatever mood His curious fingers lent, her voice made good. The man perceived his rival, and her art; Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport, Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come Informs it in a sweet præludium
Of closer strains, and e'er the war begin, He lightly skirmishes on every string Charged with a flying touch; and straightway she Carves out her dainty voice as readily Into a thousand sweet distinguished tones, And reckons up in soft divisions
Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know, By that shrill taste, she could do something too. His nimble hand's instinct then taught each string
A capering cheerfulness, and made them sing To their own dance; now negligently rash He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash Blends all together; then distinctly trips From this to that, then quick returning skips, And snatches this again, and pauses there. She measures every measure, everywhere. Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out, Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note, Through the sleek passage of her open throat, A clear, unwrinkled song; then doth she point it With tender accents, and severely joint it By short diminutives, that being reared In controverting warbles, evenly shared, With her sweet self she wrangles: he, amazed That from so small a channel should be raised The torrent of a voice whose melody Could melt into such sweet variety, Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art, The tattling strings, each breathing in his part, Most kindly do fall out: the grumbling bass In surly groans disdains the treble's grace ; The high-percht treble chirps at this, and chides, Until his finger (moderator) hides And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all, Hoarse, shrill, at once; as when the trumpets call Hot Mars to the harvest of death's field, and woo Men's hearts into their hands; this lesson too She gives them back; her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill, The pliant series of her slippery song; Then starts she suddenly into a throng Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys
And roll themselves over her lubric throat
In panting murmurs, stilled out of her breast; That ever-bubbling spring, the sugared nest Of her delicious soul, that there does lie Bathing in streams of liquid melody; Music's best seed-plot; when in ripened airs A golden-headed harvest fairly rears His honey-dropping tops plowed by her breath Which there reciprocally laboreth.
In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Sounded to the name of great Apollo's lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon, and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,
To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing (Most divine service), whose so early lay Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day. There might you hear her kindle her soft voice In the close murmur of a sparkling noise; And lay the groundwork of her hopeful song, Still keeping in the forward stream so long, Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out) Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about, And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast, Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest, Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky, Winged with their own wild echoes, prattling fly. She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride On the waved back of every swelling strain, Rising and falling in a pompous train ; And while she thus discharges a shrill peal Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal With the cool epode of a graver note; Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravished, and so poured Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed Above herself, music's enthusiast.
Shame now and anger mixed a double stain In the musician's face: "Yet, once again, Mistress, I come now reach a strain, my lute, Above her mock, or be forever mute. Or tune a song of victory to me, Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy." So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings, And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings. The sweet-lipped sisters musically frighted, Singing their fears are fearfully delighted; Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs Are fanned and frizzled in the wanton airs Of his own breath, which, married to his lyre, Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self
From this to that, from that to this he flies, 1 Feels music's pulse in all her arteries:
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, His fingers struggle with the vocal threads, Following those little rills, he sinks into A sea of Helicon; his hand does go Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup. The humorous strings expound his learned touch By various glosses; now they seem to grutch And murmur in a buzzing din, then jingle In shrill-toned accents striving to be single; Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke, Gives life to some new grace; thus doth he invoke Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus (Fraught with a fury so harmonious), The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, Heaved on the surges of swollen rhapsodies; Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air With flash of high-born fancies, here and there Dancing in lofty measures, and anon Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone, Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs, Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares; Because those precious mysteries that dwell In music's ravished soul he dare not tell, But whisper to the world: thus do they vary, Each string his note, as if they meant to carry Their master's blest soul (snatched out at his ears By a strong ecstasy) through all the spheres Of music's heaven; and seat it there on high, In the empyrean of pure harmony. At length (after so long, so loud a strife Of all the strings, still breathing the best life Of blest variety, attending on
His fingers' fairest evolution,
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) A full-mouthed diapason swallows all.
This done, he lists what she would say to this: For they were rivals, and their mistress, HarAnd she, although her breath's late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat, Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note. Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries To measure all those wild diversities
Of chattering strings by the small size of one Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone; She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies: She dies, and leaves her life the victor's prize, Falling upon his lute: O, fit to have
(That lived so sweetly), dead, so sweet a grave!
FROM THE "LOVER'S MELANCHOLY."
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird
Whom art had never taught clefs, moods, or
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study Had busied many hours to perfect practice : To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full center of delight. AM. Now for the bird. MEN.
The bird, ordained to be
MENAPHON. Passing from Italy to Greece, Music's first martyr, strove to imitate
« 前へ次へ » |