Oh! there’s not a spell so glowing in this lovely world of ours, As when Feeling’s tones are flowing through the voices of the flowers, When Affection’s thoughts are wreathing in a murmured melody Round their dewy petals breathing forth a music-mystery.
There are angel voices given in their delicate perfume, Which will lead us up to Heaven where the fadeless roses bloom, They have come unto us glowing with a beauty from the skies, They are gifts of God’s bestowing, from a blessed Paradise.
Let a bright and lovely vision from our sunny Southern bowers, A dream of joy elysian be awakened by these flowers, For a wealth of bliss is filling all the loveliness they wear, And their tiny leaves are thrilling with the messages they bear.
Where the velvet bud uncloses to the morning’s golden beam Be thy life like summer roses floating o’er a summer stream, And amid its sunny bowers may a gentle heart be thine, To bring thee back the flowers which thou hast thrown o’er mine.
Yes—a gentle heart to bring them—leaves from out the distant past, O’er thy path in life to fling them—all unfading to the last, In itself the sweetest blossom which a “God of love” has given, To be worn within thy bosom—and to bloom for aye in Heaven.
The mere capacity in man of perceiving sound, renders the musical element a necessity in nature and in life. Discord, as a permanent state, is as inconceivable as a permanent state of chaos. The combinations of sounds, therefore, in the audible creation, if not all in detail musical, are pervaded by the musical element: No ear is insensible to the music of the air in the branches of a tree; to the groaning of it in the hollow cave—to its whistle in the grass, or to its spirit-voices in a stormy night around the dwelling. No ear is insensible to the trickling melody of the stream, to the deep song of the river—to the solemn anthem of the torrent, to the eternal harmonies of the ocean. Birds are peculiarly the musicians of the animal world. But how skillful and how rich their music is, we must learn, not from the printed page, but in the sunny grove. Though other creatures have not, as birds, the gift of song, yet are they not unmusical, and have their parts in the mighty orchestra of living nature. Musical sounds are grateful to the sense—and all beings that hear listen to them, enjoy them, and need them. In music man has a common medium of sympathy with his fellow animals. The charger prances to the sounds that swell the heart of his master—for he, too, has a heart which they can enter and dilate. A melody can soothe the lion’s rage. The elephant treads delighted to the measure of the band. The dog bays gladness to the shepherd’s flute. The cow stands in placid rapture while the milk-maid sings. Man is scarcely ever so rude as to be beyond the reach of music. It was a myth, containing as much truth as beauty, that feigned Apollo with his lyre as the early tamer of wild men. If music is the first influence which the race feels, it is also the first which the individual feels. The infant opens its intelligence and love to the mother’s song as much as to the mother’s face. The voice, even more than the look, is the primitive awakener of the intellect and heart. Every mother ought to sing. A song will outlive all sermons in the memory. Let memories that begin life have songs that last for life.