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Though the music of the spheres, regarded in its true light, is only an elegant fiction, Addison in his beautiful hymn, "The spacious firmament on high,' has given it more than an ideal existence, every verse of which suggests the idea of melody.

Among modern poets, Henry Kirke White has the following beautiful passage on this subject :

Who is it leads the planets on their dance-
The mighty sisterhood? Who is it strikes
The harp of universal harmony?

Hark! 'tis the voice of planets on their dance,
Led by the arch contriver. Beautiful

The harmony of order! How they sing!

The regulated orbs upon their path

Through the wide trackless ether sing, as though
A siren sat upon each glittering gem,

And made fair music, such as mortal hand

Ne'er raised on the responding chords; more like
The mystic melody that oft the bard

Hears in the strings of the suspended harp,
Touched by some unknown beings that reside
In evening breezes, or, at dead of night,

Wake in the long, shrill pauses of the wind.

To which may be added another, by Atherstone, in his "Midsummer Day's Dream ;" a beautiful spirit is addressing a son of earth.

"Thou seest these shining orbs

That wing their smooth way through the fields of ether;
And thou didst hear on earth the seas and hills

Giving out joyful music:-think'st thou then
These mighty worlds are voiceless?

To thine ear,
Unopened, what a deep and awful silence
Is in these lonely realms of endless space!
The murmur of a stream, the gentle cooing
Of a young dove, breaking upon this hush,
Would seem to thee as loud as a cataract;
But thou shalt know that silence is not here,
Nor dead vacuity: throughout all space
Nature hath her own music; all that gives
To the eye beauty, yields, to gifted ears,
A melody as beauteous. Listen, now!"

Oh! then there was a burst of glorious sounds,
Such as I never head, and could not hear
With waking sense, and live: nor can I tell,
Nor could man comprehend, by any force
Of words, the beauty, the sublimity

Of that o'erwhelming chorus; for, at once
From every star there issued forth a voice
That might have sounded to the uttermost ends
Of space, majestic, awful; yet inspiring
Joy, tenderness, devotion, rapture,-all
That melts the spirit down in bliss, or lifts,
Expands, and glorifies, as if it felt

The presence of the actual Deity.

At once the mighty spheres sent up their song
In various and magnificent harmony;
Each twinkling star among the countless host
Chanted exultingly, with tone distinct
As if alone it sang; yet all commixed
In wondrous chorus: and the sun above
Poured out his voice as if the infinitude

Of space were filled with deep melodious thunder.

The author of the " Opening of the Sixth Seal"

has the following:

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Held planetary orbs their mystic dance

That never had known change; worlds above worlds,

Countless as pearly drops that gem the mead

On vernal morn, lay pillowed on the sky;

And in the centre of the wondrous whole

The Deity Himself, benignant still,
Guiding, protecting them, the Spirit of life
Transfused, and Omnipresent, reigned o'er all.

So they went on in harmony, and knew
Each, its prescribed course; and, as they rolled,
Celestial music through the boundless space
Incessant roamed, the music of the spheres,
To mortal ears inaudible, but oft

By listening seraphs, in their viewless flight

On light's pure pinions, raptured heard; so they
In smooth unerring course, through ether fled,

Rapidly rolling, and with hallowed song,

Together hymned sweet music to their God.

Exquisitely beautiful also are the allusions to this heavenly music in "The Lost Pleiad," by the

lovely authoress of "The Improvisatrice." The poetic fiction depends on that often quoted verse of Ovid:

66

Quæ septem dici, sex tament esse solent.”

Which seven are called, though only sir appear.

from which it is supposed that one of these stars
has disappeared from the cluster; the asterism of
the Pleiades bears some resemblance to a lyre.
And who were they, the lovely seven,
With shape of earth, and home in heaven?
Daughters of King Atlas they.

Six were brides in sky and sea,
To some crowned divinity;
But his youngest, loveliest one,
Was as yet unwooed, unwon.

This lovely Pleiad (Cyrene) becomes the bride of an earthly prince, and each day is passed in the sweetest intercourse

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This bright, this half immortal bride, who had left her glorious sphere, is deserted by Prince Cyris.

They parted as all lovers part,

She with her wronged, her breaking heart,
But he rejoicing he is free.

'Twas the red hue of twilight's hour That lighted up the forest bower, Where that sad Pleiad looked her last, The white wave of his plume is past; She raised her listening head in vain, To catch his echoing step again, Then bowed her face upon her hand, And once or twice a burning tear Wandered beyond their white command, And mingled with the waters clear: 'Tis said, that even from that day, Those waters caught their diamond ray. The evening shades closed o'er the sky, The night winds sang their melody: They seemed to rouse her from the dream That chained her by that lonely stream. She came when first the starry lyre Tinged the green wave with kindling fire; "Come, sister," sang they, "to thy place;" The Pleiad gazed, then hid her face: Slowly that lyre rose while they sung,Alas there is one chord unstrung.

It rose until Cyrene's ear

No longer could its music hear;

She sought the fountain, and flung there
The crown that bound her raven hair!
The starry crown, the sparkles died,
Darkening within its fated tide.
She sinks by that lone wave,-
-'tis past-
There the lost Pleiad breathed her last.
No mortal hand e'er made her grave;
But one pale rose was seen to wave,
Guarding a sudden growth of flowers,
Not like those sprung in summer hours,
But pale and drooping; each appears
As if their only dew were tears.
On that sky lyre a chord is mute :
Haply one echo yet remains,

To linger on the poet's lute,

And tell in its most mournful strains,

-A star hath left its native sky,
To touch our cold earth, and to die.

The Naturalist's Diary,

For June, 1830.

It was the morning of a day in spring,
The sun looked gladness from the eastern sky;
Birds were upon the trees and on the wing,

And all the air was rich with melody;

The heaven, the calm blue heaven was bright on high;
Earth laughed beneath, in all its freshening green;
The free blue stream, in joy went murmuring by,
And many a sunny glade and flowery scene

Gleamed out, like thoughts of youth, life's troubled years between.

The rose's breath upon the south wind came,—

Oft, as its whisperings, the young branches stirred,
And flowers, for which the poet hath no name;
While, 'midst the blossoms of the grove was heard
The murmur of the restless humming bird;
Waters were dancing in the mellow light,
And joyous tones, and many a cheerful word,
Stole on the charmed ear with soul delight,

As waits on soft sweet tones of music heard at night.

The night dews lay in the half-open flower,
Like hopes that nestle in the youthful breast,
And ruffled by the light airs of the hour,
Awoke the clear lake from its glassy rest;
Far blending with the blue and distant west,
Lay the dim woodlands, and the quiet gleam
Of amber clouds, like islands of the blest,
Glorious and bright, and changing like a dream,
And lessening fast away beneath the intenser beam.

Songs were amid the mountains far and wide
And songs were on the green slopes blooming nigh;
While 'mid the springing flowers on every side,

Upon its painted wings, the butterfly

Roamed a sweet blossom of the sunny sky;
The visible smile of joy was on the scene;

'Twas a bright vision but too soon to die:
Spring may not linger in her robes of green-

Autumn, in storm and shade, shall quench the summer sheen.

W. G. C. CLARKE.

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