II.
By Music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low,
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, assuasive voice applies ;
Or, when the soul is press’d with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds;
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouses from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
Listening Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our Passions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away
their
rage.
III.
But when our Country's cause provokes to Arms,
How martial music every bosom warms !
So when the first bold vessel dar'd the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main.
Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Enfiam'd with glory's charms :
Each chief his sevenfold hield display'd,
And half unsheath'd the shining blade :
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms, to arms, to arms !
IV.
But when through all th' infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegeton surrounds,
Love, strong as Death, the Poets led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear d,
O'er all the dreary coasts !
55
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
60
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortur'd ghosts!
But hark ! he strikes the golden lyre;
And fee! the tortur'd ghosts respire.
See, shady forms advance!
Thy ftone, o Sisyphus, stands ftill,
Ixion refts upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance !
The Furies fink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang liftening round their heads.
V.
. By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers ;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of Afphodel,
75 Or Amaranthine bowers;
By
By the hero's armed fhades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades;
By the youths that dy'd for love,
Wandering in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice to life :
Oh take the hulband, or return the wife !
He sung, and hell consented
To hear the Poet's prayer ;
Stern Proferpine relented,
And
gave
him back the fair.
Thus song could prevail
O'er death, and o'er hell,
A conquest how hard and how glorious !
Though fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet music and love were victorious.
VI.
But foon, too soon the lover turns his eyes :
Again the falls, again the dies, she dies !
How wilt thou now the fatal fisters move ?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in Mæanders
All alone,
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan;
And calls her ghoft,
For ever, ever, ever loft!
Now with Furies surrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
He trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope's snows :
See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;
Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals cries
Ah see, he dies !
Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung,
Eurydice still trembled on his tongue,
Eurydice the woods,
115
Eurydice the floods,
Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains-rung.
VII.
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's feverest rage disarm :
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please :
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confin’d the found.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th’immortal powers incline their ear ;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire ;
And angels lean from heaven to hear.
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Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater power is given :
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,
Her's lift the soul to heaven,
VOL. I,
G
TWO
TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS. Altered from Shakespeare by the Duke of Buckingham,
at whose desire these two Choruses were composed, to supply as many, wanting in his play. They were set many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house.
CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.
E shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught
Where heavenly visions Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay inspir'd!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses' fhades.
ANTISTROPHE I.
Oh heaven-born filters ! source of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart ;
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,
Moral truth and mystic Song !
To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?
Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore ?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more ?
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