Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain,
Let the warbling lute complain;
Let the loud trumpet sound,
Till the roofs all around

The shrill echoes rebound:,

While, in more lengthen'd notes and slow,
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow,
Hark! the numbers soft and clear
Gently steal upon the ear;

Now louder, and yet louder rise,

And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;
Till, by degrees, remote and small
The strains decay,

And melt away

In a dying, dying fall.

II.

By music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low,
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, assuasive voice applies;

Or, when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.

Warriors she fires with animated sounds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds;
Melancholy lifts her head,

Morpheus rouzes from his bed,

Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning Envy drops her snakes;

use in inspiring the heroic passions in particular; the fourth, fifth and sixth their power over all nature in the fable of Orpheus's expedition to hell; which subject of illustration arose naturally out of the preceding mention of the Argonautic expedition, where Orpheus gives the example of the use of music to inspire the heroic passions. The seventh concludes in praise of Music, and the advantages of the sacred above the prophane. Man findet eine schöne Nachbildung dieser Ode von C. F. Weifse, in dessen kleinen lyrischen Gedichten, Theil III. S. 175.

Intestine war no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions hear away their rage.

III.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms
How martial music every bosom warms!

So when the first bold vessel dar'd the seas,

High on the stern *) the Thracian **) ráis'd his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees ***>
Descend from Pelion to the main.

Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,'
Enflam'd with glory's charms:
Each chief his seven-fold shield display'd,
And half unsheath'd the shining blade:
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms, to' arms, to arms!

IV.

But when through all th' infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegeton surrounds,

Love, strong as death, the Poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,

What scenes appear'd,

O'er all the dreary coasts!

Dreadful gleams,

Dismal screams,

Fires that glow,

Shrieks of woe,

Sullen moans,

Hollow groans,

And cries of tortur'd ghosts!

But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire,
See, shady forms advance!

*) Stern, der hintere Theil des Schiffes, wo sich der Steuer mann befindet. **) Orpheus. ***) Argo, Name des Schiffs, auf welchem die Argonauten den Zug zur Eroberung des golde nen Vliefses unternahmen. Es war aus dem Holze des Waldes bei Dodona verfertigt.

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 list'ning round their heads.

V.

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow,
O'er th' Elysian flow'rs;

By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Or amaranthine bow'rs,

By the hero's armed shades,
Glitt'ring through the gloomy glades;
By the youths that dy'd for love,
Wand'ring in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice, to life:
Oh, take the husband, or return the wife!
He sung, and hell consented

To hear the Poet's prayer:

Stern Proserpine relented,

And gave him back the fair:

Thus song could prevail

O'er death, and o'er hell,

▲ conquest how hard, and how glorious! Though fate had fast bound her

With Styx nine times round her, Yet music and love were victorious.

VI.

But soon, too soon,
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.

the lover turns his eyes:

Now under hanging mountains,

Beside the falls of fountains,

Or where Hebrus wanders,

*) Vermuthlich eine Anspielung auf die Ferrei Eumenidum thalami, im 6ten Buche von Virgil's Aneide, Vers 280.

Rolling in meanders,
All alone,

Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan,
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; Hark! Hamus resounds with the Bacchanal's cries Ah, see, he dies!

Yet, even 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,

And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound.
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.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater power is giv'n;
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell.
Her's lift the soul to heav'n.

3) ELRGY *),

[To the memory of an unfortunate Lady **)].

What beckoning ghost, along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

'Tis she!

but why that bleeding bosom gor'd?
Why dimly gleams the visionary`sword?
Oh! ever-beauteous, ever-friendly! tell,
Is it in heav'n a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye Pow'rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes,
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,

And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep,

From these, perhaps, (ere nature bade her die)

Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.

As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below,
So flew the soul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death;
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,

Eine wohlgelungene Nachbildung des Originals von G. L. Spalding findet man in dessen Versuch didaktischer Gedichte, Berlin 1804, S. 64. **) Dieses Frauenzimmer entleibte sich in Frankreich, verfolgt in der Liebe von ihrem Oheim, der ihr Vormund war.