When through life unblest we rove, <br />Losing all that made life dear, <br />Should some notes we used to love, <br />In days of boyhood, meet our ear, <br />Oh! how welcome breathes the strain! <br />Wakening thoughts that long have slept, <br />Kindling former smiles again <br />In faded eyes that long have wept. <br /> <br />Like the gale, that sighs along <br />Beds of oriental flowers, <br />Is the grateful breath of song, <br />That once was heard in happier hours. <br />Fill'd with balm the gale sighs on, <br />Though the flowers have sunk in death; <br />So, when pleasure's dream is gone, <br />Its memory lives in Music's breath. <br /> <br />Music, oh, how faint, how weak, <br />Language fades before thy spell! <br />Why should Feeling ever speak, <br />When thou canst breathe her soul so well? <br />Friendship's balmy words may feign, <br />Love's are even more false than they; <br />Oh! 'tis only music's strain <br />Can sweetly soothe, and not betray.<br /><br />Thomas Moore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-music/
