142 
BllAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
song to hear the tinkling of the bells upon the desert 
sand, animated the harper in the olden times when he 
poured forth his wild songs to nerve the chieftain's arm 
for battle. No music is there like the human voice : 
harmony may flow from trembling strings; but the 
soul of song dwells sweetest on the human lips. It was 
in musical sentences that Pythagoras uttered those 
wonderful spondees by which he could suddenly pacify a 
man that was in a violent transport of anger; and in 
the simple ballad sung to-day at the fireside, the heart 
finds one of its sweetest consolations, and learns a sym¬ 
pathy which for ever links it in memory with home. 
Yirgil knew the value and the beauty of the voice when 
he made Silenus sing of the Epicurean birthday, and in 
a strain so thrilling that 
“ Tripping satyrs crowded to the song ; 
And sylvan fauns, and savage beasts advanced, 
And nodding forests to the numbers danced.” 
And there are but few who could sit listless while the 
lips of beauty were uttering the language of a tender ballad 
—a ballad of the heart, woven of home joys and sorrows 
—not the jingle of a heartless and abandoned fancy. Oh, 
the magic of that tender touch !—the thrill of that 
utterance of soul for soul—the glorious circle of associa¬ 
tions kindled into being by the music of those household 
words by which our mothers sang us to sleep,—by 
which our sweethearts beguiled the evenings of our 
wooing, and by which, as age and trouble gather around 
us, we hope to have for solace in the downward path! 
The finishing touch—the completion of the household 
circle—is this fire-side song; enjoyed but once, it is 
