But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire.
See, shady forms advance!

Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,

And the pale spectres dance!

The Furies sink upon their iron beds,

And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their heads.

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
Oe'r th' elysian flowers;

By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Or aramanthine bowers;
By the hero's armed shades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades;
By the youths that died for love,
Wandering in the myrtle grove,

Restore, restore Eurydice to life:

Oh take the husband, or return the wife!
He sung, and hell consented

To hear the poet's prayer;
Stern Proserpine 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.

But soon, too soon the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters 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 meanders,

All alone,

Unheard, unknown,

He makes his moan;

And calls her ghost,
For ever, ever, ever lost!
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 e'en in death Eurydice he sung;

Eurydice still trembled on his tongue;

Eurydice the woods,

Eurydice the floods,

Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung.

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest 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 sound.
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.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater power is given:
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heaven.

TWO CHORUSES

TO THE 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.

Strophe 1.

Y

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' shades.

Antistrophe 1.

Oh heaven-born sisters! 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?

Strophe 2.

When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild barbarians spurn her dust;

Perhaps e'en Britain's utmost shore
Shall cease to blush with stranger's gore:
See arts her savage sons control,

And Athens rising near the pole!

Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

Antistrophe 2.

Ye gods! what justice rules the ball!
Freedom and arts together fall;
Fools grant whate'er ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are slaves.
O curs'd effects of civil hate,

In every age, in every state!

Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

Semichorus.

OH tyrant love! hast thou possest

The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast? Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But entering learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which nature hath imprest?
Why, nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and generous breast?

Chorus.

Love's purer flames the gods approve;
The gods and Brutus bend to love:
Brutus for absent Porcia sighs,

And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.

What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust;
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wandering, self-consuming fire.
But Hymen's kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one;

Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the sun.

Semichorus.

Oh source of every social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother, husband, friend!
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;

What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move!

His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With reverence, hope, and love.

Chorus.

Hence, guilty joys, distastes, surmises;
Hence, false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises,

Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine:

Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure;
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure,

Sacred Hymen! these are thine.