In vain with cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove, or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud : Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded infant's hand;

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.

So, when the sun in bed

Curtain'd with cloudy red

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest-teemed star

Hath fixed her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending :

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

J. Milton

LXIII

SONG FOR SAINT CECILIA'S DAY,

1687

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay

And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began :

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.

Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell

That spoke so sweetly and so well.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

The trumpet's loud clangor

Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger

And mortal alarms.

The double double double beat

Of the thundering drum

Cries Hark! the foes come;

Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!'

The soft complaining flute

In dying notes discovers

The woes of hopeless lovers,

Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim

Their jealous pangs and desperation,

Fury, frantic indignation,

Depth of pains, and height of passion

For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,

Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees uprooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre:

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An Angel heard, and straight appear'd-
Mistaking Earth for Heaven!

Grand Chorus

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blest above;

So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.
J. Dryden

LXIV

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT

Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones

E

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Forget not: In thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant, that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who, having learnt Thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

7. Milton

LXV

HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND

The forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.

'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.

So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urgéd his active star :

And like the three-fork'd lightning first,
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side

His fiery way divide:

For 'tis all one to courage high
The emulous, or enemy;

And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose.

Then burning through the air he went And palaces and temples rent ;

And Caesar's head at last

Did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the Man is due

Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reservéd and austere
(As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot)

Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould.

Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the ancient Rights in vainBut those do hold or break

As men are strong or weak.

Nature, that hateth emptiness,

Allows of penetration less,

And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art,

Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope

That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook's narrow case;

That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn :
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands;