young,

While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Thronged around her magic cell, Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,

Possessed beyond the Muse's painting:

By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined; Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,

Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, From the supporting myrtles round, They snatched her instruments of sound;

And as they oft had heard apart, Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each (for Madness ruled the hour) Would prove his own expressive

power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,

Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why,

E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings:

In one rude clash he struck the lyre,

And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures, wan Despair Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;

A solemn, strange, and mingled air; 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whispered promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!

Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale.

She called on Echo still, through all the song;

And, where her sweetest theme she chose.

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,

And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. And longer had she sung;- but with a frown Revenge impatient rose: He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder down;

And with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full
of woe!

And, ever and anon, he beat
The doubling drum, with furious
heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it called on Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more

sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round a holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how altered was its sprightlier tone,

When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,

Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and
Dryad known;

The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys

And I so lowly be,

Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.

Hark! how the strings awake:
And, though the moving hand ap-
proach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests
of her eye.

Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only
found

To cure, but not to wound,

And she to wound, but not to cure.

With ravished 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!
Flushed 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.

Soothed 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 Heaven and Earth defied
Changed his hand and checked his
pride.

He chose a mournful Muse
Soft pity to infuse:

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

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless
victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turns of Chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled 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 soothed his soul to pleasures.

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 raised up his head:

As awaked 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 their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from
their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band

Each a torch in his hand!
Those 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 glittering temples of their hostile gods.

The princes applaud with a furious joy:

And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;

Thus long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned 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 frame;
The sweet enthusiast from her sacred
store

Enlarged 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 raised a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down!

DRYDEN.

Statues, bend your heads in sor

row,

Ye that glance 'mid ruins old,
That know not a past, nor expect a

morrow

On many a moonlight Grecian wold!