Timotheus, plac'd on high

Amid the tuneful choir

With flying fingers touch'd the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above,
Such is the power of mighty Love!
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,

When he to fair Olympia press'd;

And while he sought her snowy breast,
Then round her slender waist he curl'd,

And stamp'd an image of himself, a sov'reign of the world.
The list'ning crowd admire the lofty sound;

A present deity, they shout around;

A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish'd ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young:

The jolly god in triumph comes:

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flush'd with a purple grace

He shows his honest face.

Now, give the hautboys breath! he comes! he comes!

Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain:

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure;

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:

Rich the treasure

Sweet the pleasure

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain :

Fought all his battles o'er again:

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heav'n and earth defied,

Chang'd his head, and check'd his pride.
He chose a mournful muse.

Soft pity to infuse:

He sang Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate

Fall'n, fall'n, fall'n, fall'n,
Fall'n from his high estate,

And welt'ring in his blood:

Deserted at his utmost need

By those his former bounty fed,

И

On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast look the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul

The various turns of fate below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smil'd to see
That love was in the next degree;
'Twas but a kindred sound to move;
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures;
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying!
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

The many rend the skies with loud applause;

So love was crown'd, but music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain.

Gazed on the fair

Who caus'd his care,

And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.

At length with love and wine at once oppress'd,
The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound

Has rais'd up his head,

As awak'd from the dead,

And, amazed, he stares around.

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries;
See the Furies arise;

See the snakes that they rear!

How they hiss in the air,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,

And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain;

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew:

Behold how they toss their torches on high!
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glitt'ring temples of their hostile gods!

The princes applaud, with a furious joy;

And the king seiz'd a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.

Thus long ago,

Ere heaving billows learn'd to blow,

While organs yet were mute,
Timotheus to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal flame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He rais'd a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

CHARACTER OF SHAFTESBURY.

Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place;
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high,

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,

Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide;

Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son;
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state:
To compass this, the triple bond he broke,

The pillars of the public safety shook,

And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:

Then, seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name.

So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes;
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, yet praise the judge.
In Israel's court ne'er sat an Abethdin

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper for the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,

Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free,

And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.

CHARACTER OF BUCKINGHAM.

Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various that he seem'd to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was ev'ry thing by starts, and nothing long,
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish, or to enjoy,
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes ;
So over-violent, so over-civil,

That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert:

Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate;
He laugh'd himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

THE HIND AND PANTHER.

A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without, unspotted; innocent, within;

She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin:

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,
And Scythian shafts and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forced to fly,
And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.
Panting and pensive, now she ranged alone,
And wander'd in the kingdoms once her own:
The common hunt, though from their rage restrain'd
By sovereign power, her company disdain'd,
Grinn'd as they pass'd, and with a glaring eye
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.

'Tis true she bounded by, and tripp'd so light,
They had not time to take a steady sight:
For truth had such a face and such a mien,
As to be lov'd, needs only to be seen.

The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
Oh, could her in-born stains be wash'd away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey!
How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend?
Her faults and virtues lie so mix'd, that she
Nor wholly stands condemn'd nor wholly free;
Then like her injur'd lion, let me speak;

He can not bend her, and he would not break.
Unkind already, and estrang'd in part,
The wolf begins to share her wandering heart:
Though unpolluted yet with actual ill,

She half commits who sins but in her will.

If, as our dreaming Platonists report,

There could be spirits of a middle sort,

Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropt half-way down, nor lower fell;
So pois'd, so gently, she descends from high,

It seems a soft dismission from the sky.

THEODORE AND HONORIA.

The spring was in the prime; the neighbouring grove Supplied with birds, the choristers of love :

Music unbought, that minister'd delight

To morning walks, and lull'd his cares by night:
There he discharg'd his friends, but not th' expense
Of frequent treats and proud magnificence.
He liv'd as kings retire, though more at large
From public business, yet with equal charge;
With house and heart still open to receive;
As well content as love would give him leave: