More on Music
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.
Soft is the music that would charm forever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced,
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed
And opened new fountains in the human heart.
And without music there can be no perfect knowledge, for there is nothing without it. For even the universe itself is said to have been put together with a certain harmony of sounds, and the very heavens revolve under the guidance of harmony.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
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