Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871)

A MELODY with Southern passion fraught

I hear thee warble: ’t is as if a bird

By intuition human strains had caught,

But whose pure breast no kindred feeling stirred:

Thy native song the hushed arena fills,

So wildly plaintive that I seem to stand

Alone, and see, from off the circling hills,

The bright horizon of the North expand!

High art is thus intact; and matchless skill

Born of intelligence and self-control,—

The graduated tone and perfect trill

Prove a restrained, but not a frigid soul;

Thine finds expression in such generous deeds,

That music from thy lips for human sorrow pleads!