Belief; The Unknown Language

By summer-reeds a music murmur'd low,
And straight the Shepherd-age came back to me;
When idylls breathed where Himera's waters flow,
Or on the Hoemus hill, or Rhodope;

As when the swans, by Moschus heard at noon,
Mourn'd their lost Bion on the Thracian streams;
Or when Simaethea murmur'd to the moon
Of Myndian Delphis,--old Sicilian themes.

Then softly turning, on the margent-slope
Which back as clear translucent waters gave,
Behold, a Shape as beautiful as Hope,
And calm as Grief, bent, singing o'er the wave.

To the sweet lips, sweet music seem'd a thing
Natural as perfume to the violet.
All else was silent; not a zephyr's wing
Stirr'd from the magic of the charmer's net.

What was the sense beneath the silver tone?
What the fine chain that link'd the floating measure?
Not mine, to say,--the language was unknown,
And sense was lost in undistinguish'd pleasure.

Pleasure, dim-shadow'd with a gentle pain
As twilight Hesper with a twilight shroud;
Or like the balm of a delicious rain
Press'd from the fleeces of a summer cloud.

When the song ceased, I knelt before the singer
And raised my looks to soft and childlike eyes,
Sighing? "What fountain, O thou nectar-bringer
Feeds thy full urn with golden melodies?

"Interpret sounds, O Hebe of the soul,
Oft heard, methinks, in Ida's starry grove,
When to thy feet the charmed eagle stole,
And the dark thunder left the brows of Jove!"

Smiling, the Beautiful replied to me,
And still the language flow'd in words unknown;
Only in those pure eyes my sense could see
How calm the soul that so perplex'd my own.

And while she spoke, symphonious murmurs rose;
Dryads from trees, Nymphs murmur'd from the rills;
Murmur'd Maenalian Pan from dim repose
In the lush coverts of Pelasgic hills;

Murmur'd the voice of Chloris in the flower;
Bent, murmuring from his car, Hyperion;
Each thing regain'd the old Presiding Power,
And spoke,--and still the language was unknown.

Dull listener, placed amidst the harmonious Whole,
Hear'st thou no voice to sense divinely dark?
The sweetest sounds that wander to the soul
Are in the Unknown Language.--Pause, and hark!