Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/264

 Lewis Morris declares "The flute is sweet to Gods and men." Poets have termed it "mellow," "melodious," "softening," "soft and tender," "peaceful," "amorous," "soul-delighting," "charming," "warbling," "wailing," "melancholy," "lonely." In Paradise Lost, Satan's army moves to "The Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders." Milton elsewhere speaks of the "oaten flute" of Lycidas and the "jocund flute" of Comus. Browne in his Pastorals (iii. 1) has a "hollow, heavy flute." Swinburne in Songs before Sunrise has "the fierce flute." Surely no epithet could be less appropriate!

Cowper evidently regarded the flute as an instrument of effeminacy and wantonness (see The Timepiece, 260, and The Progress of Error, 133); he considered that Mrs. Throckmorton's bull-finch could "all the sounds express of flageolet or flute." The songs of birds and the notes of the flute are frequently compared. Longfellow in The Masque of Pandora calls birds "feathered flute-players," and in The Spanish Student says the fife has "a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that soars up to my lady's window like the song of a swallow." In Hiawatha the gentle Chibiabos, best of all musicians, plays on "Flutes so musical and mellow," and Pau-Puk-Keewis dances his mystic dance to the sound of flutes. In his Divine Tragedy Longfellow introduces the "flute-players" at the death of the daughter of Jairus. The poet has here anticipated the revisers of the Bible; they have substituted "the flute-players"