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Power of Music

  An Orpheus! An Orpheus!--yes, Faith may grow bold,
  And take to herself all the wonders of old;--
  Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same,
  In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.
  His station is there;--and he works on the crowd,
  He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
  He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim--
  Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him!
  What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
  The weary have life and the hungry have bliss;           10
  The mourner is cheared, and the anxious have rest;
  And the guilt-burthened Soul is no longer opprest.
  As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
  So he where he stands is a center of light;
  It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-faced Jack,
  And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back.
  That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in haste--
  What matter! he's caught--and his time runs to waste--
  The News-man is stopped, though he stops on the fret,
  And the half-breathless Lamp-lighter he's in the net!    20
  The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
  The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;--
  If a Thief could be here he might pilfer at ease;
  She sees the Musician, 'tis all that she sees!
  He stands, back'd by the Wall;--he abates not his din;
  His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in,
  From the Old and the Young, from the Poorest; and there!
  The one-pennied Boy has his penny to spare.
  O blest are the Hearers and proud be the Hand
  Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a Band;   30
  I am glad for him, blind as he is!--all the while
  If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.

  That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height,
  Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
  Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he!
  The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.
  There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a Tower
  That long has lean'd forward, leans hour after hour!--
  Mother, whose Spirit in fetters is bound,
  While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.     40
  Now, Coaches and Chariots, roar on like a stream;
  Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream:
  They are deaf to your murmurs--they care not for you,
  Nor what ye are flying, or what ye pursue!

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