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wildly breathing flute,

Choose ye the mildly breathing flute,
The mellow horn, the loving lute,
The viol ye must not forget,
And take the sprightly flageolet,

And grave bassoon; choose too the fife,
Whose warblings in the tuneful strife,
Mingling in myst'ry with the words,
May seem like notes of blithest birds.

Are ye prepared? now lightly tread, As if by elfin minstrels led, And fling no sound upon the air, Shall rudely wake my slumb'ring fair. Softly! Now breathe the symphony; So gently breathe, the tones may vie In softness with the magic notes In visions heard; music that floats So buoyant, that it well may seem, With strains ethereal in her dream, One song of such mysterious birth, She doubts it comes from heaven or earth. Play on! my loved one slumbers still. Play on! she wakes not with the thrill Of joy produced by strains so mild; But fancy moulds them gay and wild: Now, as the music low declines, 'Tis sighing of the forest pines, Or 'tis the fitful varied roar

Of distant falls or troubled shore. Now as the tone grows full, or sharp, 'Tis whisp'ring of th' Eolian harp.

The viol swells now low, now loud,
"Tis spirits chanting on a cloud
That passes by. It dies away;
So gently dies, she scarce can say
'Tis gone; listens; 'tis lost, she fears;
Listens; and thinks again she hears.
As dew-drops ming’ling in a stream
To her 'tis all one blissful dream-
A song of angels, thron'd in light.
Softly! away! fair one, good night.

THE BUTTERFLY.

[From the French.]

To be born with the spring, and to die with the rose,
To sip the fresh sweets of young flowers, ere they close,
To float on the wings of the zephyr at even,
And bathe in the rich flood of glory from heaven;
To shake from the wing the light spangles of gold,
And its course to the deep vaults of azure to hold;
Passing off from the bosom of earth like a sigh,
Such the magical life of the young butterfly.

It resembles Desire, which in search of new sweets, Alights on each object of beauty it meets,

But restless-unsated with bliss of the earth,

It returns to the heaven from whence it had birth.

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