Slike strani
PDF
ePub

Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in Mæanders,
All alone,

Unheard, unknown,
He makes his inoan;

And calls her ghoft.
For ever, ever, ever loft!
Now with Furies furrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
He trembles, he glows,

Amidít Rhodope's snows:

See, wild as the winds, o'er the defert he flies;
Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals cries

Ah fee, 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 difarm:
Music can foften 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 confin'd the found.

Es

100

1ος

[ocr errors][merged small]
[merged small][ocr errors]

120

125

When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our fouls aspire,
While folemn airs improve the sacred fire;

And Angels lean from heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n;
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,
Hers lift the foul to heav'n.

130

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

VE shades, where sacred truth is fought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught:
Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd,

NOTES,

THESE two Chorus's were composed to enrich a very poor Play; but they had the usual effe& of ill-adjusted ornaments, only to make its meanness the more confpicuous.

a) Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose defire these two Chorus's were composed to fupply as many, wanting in his play. They were fet many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckinghamhouse. P.

VER. 3. where heavnly vifions Plato fir'd, And Epicurus, lay inspir'd!) The propriety of these lines arifes from hence, that Brutus, one of the Heroes of this Play, was of the old Academy; and Caffins, the other, was an Epicurean; but this had not been enough to justify the Poet's choice, had not Plato's system of Divinity, and Epicurus's system of Morals, been the most rational amongst the various sects of Greek Philosophy.)

And Epicurus lay inspir'd!
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.

Oh heav'n-born fitters! source of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,
Moral Truth, and mystic Song!
To what new clime, what diftant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?

Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

STROPHE II.

When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;
Perhaps ev'n Britain's utmost shore
Shall cease to blush with stranger's gore,
See Arts her savage sons controul,
And Athens rising near the pole!

'Till fome new Tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them froin the land.

5

10

15

20

NOTES.

VER. 12. Moral truth AND mystic song.) He had expressed himfelf better had he faid.

Moral truth IN mystic fong!

In the Antiftrophe he turns from Philofophy to Myshology, and Mythology is nothing but moral eruch in mystic song.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Ye Gods! what juftice rules the ball!
Freedom and Arts together fall;
Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are flaves.
Oh curs'd effects of civil hate,

In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state!
Still, when the luft of tyrant pow'r succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

25

30

« PrejšnjaNaprej »