And calls her ghost,

For ever, ever, ever lost!

Now with Furies surrounded,

Despairing, confounded,

He trembles, he glows,

Amidst Rhodope's snows:

See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;

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ΠΙΟ

Hark! Hamus 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:
Our joys, below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.

This the divine Cecilia found,

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120

And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. 125 When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,

Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from heav'n to hear.

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Of

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, Her's lift the soul to heav'n.

TWO CHOR US'S

TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

a

STROPHE I.

YE shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal sages taught:
Where heav'nly visions Plato fir'd,

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 sisters! source of art!

Who charm the sense or mend the heart;

Who lead fair Virtue's train along,

Moral Truth, and mystic Song!

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10

To

a Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose desire these two Chorus's were composed to supply as many wanting in his play. They were set many years afterward by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house

To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?

Say, will

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

15

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 some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

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ANTISTROPHE II.

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

In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state!

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Still, when the lust of tyrant pow'r succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

30

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

SEMICHORUS.

OH tyrant Love! hast thou possest

The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,

But ent❜ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,

And Brutus tenderly reproves.

Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest,

Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire

The mild and gen'rous breast?

CHORUS.

Love's purer flames the Gods

approve;

The Gods and Brutus bend to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,

And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,

A wand'ring, self-consuming fire.

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But