THE POET TO MIS LUTE. 437 



refusal. " The poor young fellow," he said, " seemed so much to wish 

 it, and he was sure that the audience would be quite delighted." 



" He is religious in it, and enters no church but such as possesses 

 the finest organ. Does he travel ? still is the " ruling passion" strong 

 upon him it is literally a " Voyage Musicale." The Plains of Mara- 

 thon, and the Pass of Thermopylae, awaken no responsive feeling in his 

 breast ; but he spent three days in determining the site of the Temple 

 of Apollo. He thinks it a redeeming trait in the character of Nero, 

 that while Rome was burning, instead of playing the engines, he played 

 the fiddle ; and had he lived some centuries ago, we should have had our 

 suspicions that his were the hands which, according to Seutonius, 

 " unseen strewed flowers on his tomb." He knows nothing of the 

 extent, commerce, or antiquities, of the cities he has visited ; but he 

 knows to the greatest accuracy the admeasurement of the orchestras. 

 He once journeyed into Scotland, and could get no further than Fife. 

 Does he " take his ease at his inn," it is at the sign of the Harp or the 

 Horns. In every window of his house, eolian harps waste their sweet- 

 ness on the desert air ; all his spoons are^c^/e-headed, and his furniture 

 fluted. In short, he thinks music breathes music lives music and 

 will doubtless, " swan like, die in music :" ay, and when the last trumpet 

 shall sound its awful summons, we warrant, Apollo Skeggins will be 

 found no laggard. MAR. W . 



THE POET TO HIS LUTE. 



OH, wake once more ! though sad the strain, 

 And trembling now the hand that flings 

 Its timid fingers once again 

 Across thy long-neglected strings. 



For I have felt the withering power 

 Of sorrow, since I heard thee last. 

 And thou alone in this drear hour 

 Art left to tell me of the past. 



Oh, sad is now my lonely fate, 



For all I loved in life is fled ; 



And I sit weeping, desolate, 



O'er cherished hopes now cold and dead. 



And thou and I have long been parted, 

 For 'mid the wreck of all below 

 Thou couldst not heal the broken-hearted, 

 Thou could'st but tell me of my woe. 



The weeds that are my casement wreathing, 

 Have turned around thy broken strings; 

 And the wild wind across thee breathing 

 Sighs like some wandering spirit's wings. 



Yet wake once more ! I would not have 

 Thy once-loved tones for ever mute : 

 Thou soon may'st wail above my grave, 

 But I shall hear thee not, my lute. * * * 



M.M. No. 11. 3 K 



