... We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits ... so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dump the mind oppress, Then music, with her silver sound, With speedy help doth lend redress.
For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.
Descend, ye Nine! descend and sing; The breathing instruments inspire, Wake into voice each silent string, And sweep the sounding lyre! In a sadly pleasing strain, Let the warbling lute complain: Let the loud trumpet sound, Till the roofs all around The shrill echoes rebound; While in more lengthen'd notes and slow, The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow. Hark! the numbers soft and clear Gently steal upon the ear; Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading sounds the skies; Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats; Till, by degrees, remote and small, The strains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall. By music, minds an equal temper know, Nor swell too high, nor sink too low. If in the breast tumultuous joys arise, Music her soft, assuasive voice applies; Or, when the soul is press'd with cares, Exalts her in enlivening airs. Warriors she fires with animated sounds; Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds: Melancholy lifts her head, Morpheus rouses from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, Listening Envy drops her snakes; Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions bear away their rage.