Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-03-23
There is Music I'm Nature.
BY MRS. M. A. j. KILBoURN.

BY MRS. M. A. j. KILBoURN.
With the music of nature, we are at all times
familiar. 1t cheers us at every turn, and accom-
panies us in all our walks In every change of
place its pure, its halowed notes fall gently up
on our hearing.
Music is harmony, or a combination of har-
monious sounds. Is there harmony In natures
voice! then there is music. Is there order and
regularity in her unceasing changes, and is there
harmony in the silent, immutable laws by which
she is governedY then there is music also. One
pleases the ear, the other refines and elevates
the understanding soothes and allays the pas
sons, and awakens holy, fervent aspirations-
Let dscordant note vibrate from the voice of
nature, and there would be no melody. Let
violation of her laws take place, and universal
discord would ensue. The sweet strains Of
melody and the beauties of harmony would, at
once cease but while the laws of nature act in
unison, there will be harmony in her voice, and
music in high and lofty strains will be poured
forth, from her thousands of varied instruments,
without artificial means or effort. The musi.
clan is the God of nature and the instrument
the universe, in which all parts are played by
the same skillful hand, and no discordant note
ever offends the ear. Could we soar to the
broad expanse above us, and visit the unnum-
bered worlds scattered through unbounded
space; never could we reach point where the
strains Of melody would not greet us, and the
beauties of harmony surround u.s. Could we
take our stand, upon some of the most distant
stars in the widespread universe, and view those
worlds, whose inhabitants, perhaps never sinned,
here the sweet strains of melody from natures
voice would fall as gentle showers, and we like
the tender grass, would bow beneath its genial
influence and wonder and ADORE
But let us come down 70 our own little earth,
where sin has made dscord in the moral world,
and even here we shall find music. The king
of day is welcomed by it's strains at the early
dawn, as he dispels the gloom of night, shining
forth in all his glory, as when, first he unvaiIed
his face in compliance with the mandate of
Heaven. "Let there be light, and there was
light"
| "Up to his warm embrace the dews
That all night long had wept his Absence flew:
| The joyous woods
Dried in his beams their locks, wet with the drops
OF night and all the sons of music sung
Their matin song"
There is music also, as the shades of twilight
are deepening into darkness, in the lowing of
the herd, and plaintive moaning of the lamb
strayng from the fold of the shepherd,-in the
soft, south wind that fans the forest leaf and
in the rough blast that waves the towering pine.
In the rippling stream, in the drizzling rain, in
the distant waterfall, in the hoarse loud thun-
der, as peal after peal, breaks through the arch
of Heaven. Man feels an awe, and the earth
trembles"
There is music in the grove when dressed in
her native verdure stirred by the breeze of heav-
en-, with her multitude of songsters mingling
their voices in one ceaseless strain of melody
their songs of praise There is music in the
vale as the sound of the voice comes from the
surrounding hills-on the mountain top, as the
wind whistles through the unfading forest-in
the oceans wave, Strongest of creations
sons, unwearied and unconquerable." David's
harp possessed great power and efficacy; for by
its soft notes the gloomy spirit of the king Of
Israel was cheered, it reached the fount of feel
ing in his restless bosom. But David's harp.
was confined to one age and nation and its ef-
fects to one individual. Not so with the harp
of nature; it was tuned when the morning
stars Gang together, and all the sons Of God
shouted for joy" its mellowing notes were
heard in the garden of Eden when man basked
in the smiles of his Creator, ere he had learned
to sin, or suffered the penalty of transgression
and though she for a moment hung her harp up
on the willow; and uttered groan at the fall
of man: yet she resumed her song again when
the first, sweet promise fell upon the ears of the
; guilty pair.
From that happy moment up to the present
hour, she has never ceased to sing to the great
Creators praise cheering not one man or ma
tion only, but her gentle notes reverberate from
pole to pole soothing the aching heart of the
,, lonely cottager, as we'll as the king upon his
throne-affording delight TO the mariner upon
the trackless deep, as wen as the husbandman
, in the fied-gaddening the spirit of the weary
: traveller upon the barren desert, as well as in
the fertile vale. There is music for the untu-