On A Movement Of Beethoven’s

Ave! Once more touch the strings That Memory may feed upon the strain, And over-live again The days, When the heart gloried in the golden lays That give the spirit wings. Simple—yet how profound The feeling that induces this deathless air! Did heart-ache—or depair, Or dream, Inspire its notes, that spread so charm’d a stream Of harmony around? Sometimes the deep notes swell Soft as a sigh—the semitone of thought; Yet sometimes seem they fraught With fate— Storm-toned, spirit rousing, jarr’d with hate, And booming like a knell. Wild, massy, swift and dark, The clashing strains of harmony unite, While o’er their solemn flight, One note Of wandering sweetness doth serenely float, Like love-call of the lark. Those gloomy chords at last, Roll wave-like through the caverns of the mind, And mystically wind Their way Into dark thoughts, that rise in drear array— The ghost-dreams of the past. And then the plaintive tone Of pastoral pipe, or mountain brook, or bird, In tranced thought is heard, Until The faint heart fails beneath the Master’s skill, And yearns to be alone. Yet, lady! yet once more, Bring back that branded train of hopes and fears, The passion of past years, The spell That ruled my being in its inmost cell And then sweet friend! give o’er.