The gift of song is sweet, and may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory.

The first notes of the lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains.

The fainter dawn precedes the risen day." Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that, like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved?
Who knows but that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home?
I might have been the priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered burning incense at my altar.

I might have won the laurel crown, and found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves.

I might,--but it matters not.