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; 105 110 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, Euoydice 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. Volume III. P 120 125 139 Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell; ODE ON SOLITUDE. Written when the Author was about Twelve Years old. HAPPY the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground, Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire, Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire. Bless'd, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years, slide soft away, Quiet by day, Sound sleep by night; study and ease 134 ૐ Together mix'd; sweet recreation; And innocence, which most does please, Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone ODE. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. I. VITAL spark of heav'nly flame ! II. Hark! they whisper; angels say, What is this absorbs me quite ! Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? III. The world recedes; it disappears! Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy victory? 10 18 THE SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S, VERSIFIED. Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legemes Mcelius? SATIRE II. YES, thank my stars! as early as I knew That all beside one pities, not abhors, As who knows Sappho smiles at other whores. I grant that poetry's a crying sin; It brought (no doubt) th' Excise and Army in: HOR. SATIRE II. SIR, tho' (I thank God for it) I do hate Perfectly all this Town, yet there's one state In all ill things so excellently best, That hate towards them breeds pity towards the rest. Tho' poetry, indeed, be such a sin, As I think, that brings death and Spaniards in; 5 Catch'd, like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is starving, all allow. Yet like the Papist's is the poet's state, Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate! So prompts, and saves, a rogue who cannot read. One sings the fair; but songs no longer move; Tho', like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love, One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms. |