POE T It Y.

ODE TO DISCORD.

HENCE, loathed Melody, whose name recalls

The mellow fluting of the nightingale In some sequestered vale, The murmur of the stream Heard in a dream, - Or drowsy plash of distant waterfalls.

But thou, divine Cacophony, assume Thy rightful overlordship in her room, And with Percussion's stimulating aid Expel the heavenly but no longer youthful maid.

Bestir ye, minions of the goddess new, And pay her homage due.

First let the gong's reverberating clang With clash of shivering metal

Inaugurate the reign of Sturm and Thong.

Let drums (bass, side, and kettle) Add to the general welter, and conspire To set our senses furiously on fire.

Noise, yet more noise, I say. Ye trumpets, blare In unrelated keys and rend the affrighted air.

Nor let the shrieking piccolo refrain To pierce the midmost marrow of the brain.

Bleat, cornets, bleat, and let the loud bassoon Bay like a bloodhound at an azure moon.

Last, with stentorian roar, To consummate our musical Majuba, Let the profound bass tuba Emit one long and Brobdingnagian snore.

Ye demons of unrest, your efforts spare.

The ancient fane that stood four-square For thrice an hundred years Crashes about our ears.

No more shall Music's votaries endure The stream of sound that flows Monotonously pure From a crystalline source to an insipid close.

Beethoven is sped, His works are dead, Or merely minister to our postprandial slumbers.

Wagner has reached the limbo of back numbers.

But we, blithe anarcha"of a hustling era, With rapture unalloyed, Pursue amain the strenuous Chimaera • That boometh in the void. We, scorning beauty as a snare insidious, Salute the abnormal and acclaim the hideous, With pious nlulations ushering in .

The unassailed dominion of unbridled din. C. L. G..