Renewed Agonies

And yet it had its melody--melody, to me, of the most vexing power.
I should have called the strain a soliloquizing one. It certainly
did not seem addressed to any ears. It wanted the continuance
of apostrophe. It was capricious. Sometimes the burden fell off
suddenly--broken--wholly interrupted--as if the vents had been all
simultaneously and suddenly stopped. Anon, it rose again--soul-piercing
if not loud--so abruptly, and with an utterance so utterly gone
with wo, that you felt sure the poor heart must break with the next
breath that came from the laboring and inefficient lungs. A "dying
fall" succeeding, seemed to afford temporary relief. It seemed as
if tears must have fallen upon the instrument, Its language grew
more methodical, more subdued, but not less touching. I fancied,
I felt, that, entering into the soul of the musician, I could give
the very words to the sentiment which his instrument vainly strove
to speak. What else but despair and utter self-abandonment was
in that broken language? The full heart over-burdened, breaking,
to find a vent for the feelings which it had no longer power to
contain. And yet; content to break, breaking with a melancholy sort
of triumph which seemed to say-"Such a death has its own sweetness; love sanctifies the pang to
its victim. It is a sort of martyrdom. He who loves truly, though
he loves hopelessly, has not utterly loved in vain. The devoted
heart finds a joy in the offering, though the Deity withholds his
acceptance--though a sudden gust from heaven scatters abroad the
rich fruits which the devotee has placed upon the despised and
dishonored altar."