31 JANUARY 1880, Page 14

POETRY.

AEOLIAN.

His soul is tuned to subtler harmonies Than our dull music ; never mortal touch Woke such wild sweetness from the well-tuned harp; Nor mortal touch from him can draw his best.

! set him in the woodlands, or where lakes Lend heaven a mirror for its thousand eyes, Or where the ocean evermore complains In lonely grandeur of its loneliness.

These rouse him to full rapture, and he breaks Into the sweetness of an angel's song Who wakes on earth, new-fall'n in sleep from heaven.

So the Aeolian harp owns not the sway Of harper's fingers ; not the ordered laws Of fugue, sonata, symphony ; yet breathes Its whole full heart forth to the lawless wind.

F. W. B.