III.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms,
How martial music every bosom warms !
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian raised his strain,

While Argo saw her kindred trees 40

Descend from Pelion to the main.
Transported demigods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,

Inflamed with glory's charms :
Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd, 45
And half unsheathed the shining blade :
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound,

To arms, to arms, to arms!'

50

But when, through all the infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,

Love, strong as death, the poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,

What sounds were heard,

What scenes appear'd,
O’er all the dreary coasts !

Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of wo,
Sullen moans,

Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts !
But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And, see! the tortured 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 uncursd hang listening round their

heads.

• 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 asphodel,

Or amaranthine bowers;
By the heroes' armed shades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades ;
By the youths that died for love,

Wandering in the myrtle grove ;-
Restore, restore Eurydice to life :
O, 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.

VI.
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 ? 95
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 :

109 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,

Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung.

105

115

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 :

120

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. When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, 126

The 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. 130 Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell ;

To bright Cecilia greater power is given : His numbers raised a shade from hell,

Hers lift the soul to heaven.

TWO CHORUSES

TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.*

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

STROPHE I.

YE shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal sages taught;
Where heavenly visions Plato fired,
And Epicurus lay inspired !
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 I.

0, heaven-born sisters, source of art!
Who charm the sense or mend the heart; 10
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,

Moral Truth, and mystic Song ! * Altered from Shakspeare 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.