52 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS. 
Jewels, silks, "tlie pouncet box," and music! Dirt, vice, 
tatters, Avretcliedness, and music! Silence — over tlie jang- 
ling roar of trampling, rnsliing, striving men — ^lifted up into 
a Presence Godlike, "walking the clear billows of sweet 
sound." Wbat contrasts ! O tbou Omnipotence of Music 1 
Majestic soother ! — ^before whose smile the fierj mane of 
Storms, careering thunder-hoofed along the mountains of 
the world, is laid ! — whose touch has 
" Smoothed 
The raven clown of Darkness till it smiled ! 
Thou voice of God's Love ! how beneficent art thou ! All 
pleasant objects, natures, forms, are tones of thee ! Moon- 
light is the silver tone of thy calm, radiant blessing — and 
" Oldest shades 'mong oldest trees 
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in. 
O Moon ! old boughs hsp forth a holier din 
The while they feel thin© airy fellowship. 
Thou dost bless everywhere, with silver lip 
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine, 
Couch'd in thy brightness, dream of fields divine : 
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise, 
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes ; 
And yet thy benediction passeth not 
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot 
Where pleasure may be sent : the nested wren 
Has thy fair face within its tranquil den, 
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf 
Takes glimpses of thee ; thou art a relief 
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps 
Within its pearly house." 
Ay I and that poor human oyster — the Loafer from out 
his motley painted shell of filth and rags "takes glimpses of 
thee ! The largess of thy benediction falleth over him ! The 
fellow is happy there, and his whistle is as blithesome as the 
