How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love. Beside the falls of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, All alone, Unheard, unknown, 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 even in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue, Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung. VII. 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 confined the sound. TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS. CHORUS OF ATHENIANS. STROPHE I. YE shades, where sacred truth is sought; In vain your guiltless laurels stood War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, ANTISTROPHE I. Oh heaven-born sisters! source of art! To what new clime, what distant sky, Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore? STROPHE II. When Athens sinks by fates unjust, Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand, ANTISTROPHE II. Ye gods! what justice rules the ball? In every age, in every state! Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS. SEMICHORUS. OH tyrant Love! hast thou possest And arts but soften us to feel thy flame. Why, virtue, dost thou blame desire, Why, nature, dost thou soonest fire CHORUS. Love's purer flames the gods approve; And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes. A vapour fed from wild desire, A wandering, self-consuming fire. Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light, SEMICHORUS. O source of every social tie, As son, as father, brother, husband, friend! While thousand grateful thoughts arise; Or views his smiling progeny: What tender passions take their turns, His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns, 1 1 CHORUS. Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises, Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine: ODE ON SOLITUDE. HAPPY the man, whose wish and care In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields, with bread, Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years, slide soft away, Sound sleep by night; study and ease, Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Tell where I lie. 1 THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Ode. I. VITAL spark of heavenly flame! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame! Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life! II. Hark! they whisper; angels say, III. The world recedes; it disappears! 1 H |