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 Descend from Pelion to the main. And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound, IV. But when, through all the infernal bounds, O'er all the dreary coasts! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, 40 45 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; 60 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. V. 70 By the streams that ever flow, O'er the Elysian flowers; By those happy souls who dwell He sung, and hell consented To hear the poet's prayer: A conquest how hard and how glorious! 75 80 85 90 VI. eyes: But soon, too soon, the lover turns his Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in meanders, All alone, Unheard, unknown, 95 100 For ever, ever, ever lost! 105 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. 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: 115 120 Our joys below it can improve, And to her Maker's praise confined the sound. 126 130 TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.* I. CHORUS OF ATHENIANS. STROPHE I. YE shades, where sacred truth is sought; War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, ANTISTROPHE I. 5 O, heaven-born sisters, source of art! 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. |