Peter Bayley, Jr. (1778?–1823)

SURE ’t is the voice of choired saints that flows

Along the billows of the softened breeze….

And now, in falls and dying symphonies,

So sweet it glides, that forth my rapt soul goes

To join those hymnings, ta’en from all her woes.

Yet once more, and once more, ye minstrelsies

Of power, my stormy spirit to appease,

With some dissolving dream my thoughts compose….

Again your strains float, sinking on the wind,

Soft, wild, and mournful all; now melt away,

Faintly perceived, like some expiring ray

Of memory that trembles o’er the mind,

Lovely in its departure, still enshrined

As the blest relic of a happy day.