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An ODE ON AEOLUS's HARP.
* Aeolus's Harp is a musical instrument, which plays with the wind, invented by Mr. Oswald; its properties are fully described in the Castle of Indolence.

By the Same.
I.
1 Aetherial race, inhabitants of air!
2 Who hymn your God amid the secret grove;
3 Ye unseen beings to my harp repair,
4 And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.
II.
5 Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid?
6 With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart?
7 Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid
8 Who dy'd of love, these sweet complainings part.
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III.
9 But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,
10 On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws;
11 Or he the sacred Bard!
* Jeremiah.
who sat alone,
12 In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.
IV.
13 Such was the song which Zion's children sung,
14 When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint:
15 And to such sadly solemn notes are strung
16 Angelic harps, to sooth a dying saint.
V.
17 Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,
18 Thro' heaven's high dome their aweful anthem raise;
19 Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire
20 To swell the lofty hymn, from praise to praise.
VI.
21 Let me, ye wand'ring spirits of the wind,
22 Who as wild Fancy prompts you touch the string,
23 Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd,
24 For 'till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): An ODE ON AEOLUS's HARP.
Author: James Thomson
Themes: music
Genres: ode
References: DMI 23571

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. III. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 4-5. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.003) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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