Written at Rydal Mount. I have often regretted that my tour in 
      Ireland, chiefly performed in the short days of October in a 
      Carriage-and-four (I was with Mr. Marshall), supplied my memory 
      with so few images that were new, and with so little motive to 
      write. The lines however in this poem, "Thou too be heard, lone 
      eagle!" were suggested near the Giant's Causeway, or rather at the 
      promontory of Fairhead, where a pair of eagles wheeled above our 
      heads and darted off as if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky 
      made by the setting sun.

<h3>ARGUMENT</h3>

        The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in 
      communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied 
      harmony--Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th 
      Stanza)--The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the 
      idiot--Origin of music, and its effect in early ages--How produced 
      (to the middle of 10th Stanza)--The mind recalled to sounds acting 
      casually and severally--Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these 
      could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and 
      intellectual contemplation--(Stanza 12th) The Pythagorean theory 
      of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions 
      of the universe--Imaginations consonant with such a theory--Wish 
      expressed (in 11th Stanza) realised, in some degree, by the 
      representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the 
      Creator--(Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary 
      system--The survival of audible harmony, and its support in the 
      Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.