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FOR A PICTURE OF ST. CECILIA, &c.
295
No, not to thee!—thy spirit, meek, yet queenly,
On its own starry height, beyond all this,
Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,
Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss!
Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,
Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies?
Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling,
For the deep cedar shades of Paradise!
What strain?—oh! not the Nightingale's when showering
Her own heart's life drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief away:
