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Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair.
Thus song could prevail
O'er death, and o'er hell,

A 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, the lover turns his eyes;
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.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the fall of fountains,

Or where Hebrus' wanders,
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 Bacchanals'
Ah see, he dies!

1 The myrtle was sacred to Venus.

3 The Fates Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis.

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2 A river of Hell.

4 A river of Thrace.

5 The women of Thrace enraged at Orpheus's neglect of them and under the influence of the rites of Bacchus, stoned him to death, and threw his head and legs into the river Hebrus,

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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 confined the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful choir,
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 heaven to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n;
His numbers raised a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heav'n.

TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.1

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

STROPHE I.

YE shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal sages taught;

Where heav'nly visions Plato fired,

And Epicurus lay inspired!

In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.

War, horrid war, your thoughful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the muses, shades.

1 Altered from Shakespeare by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose

When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild barbarians spurn her dust;
Perhaps even Britain's utmost shore
Shall cease to blush with strangers' gore,
See arts her savage sons control,
And Athens rising near the pole!

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

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, cursed effects of civil hate,
In every age, in every state!

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

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

SEMICHORUS.

Он, tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learned, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And arts but soften us to feel thy flame.

desire these two choruses were composed to supply as many wanting in his play. They were set many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham House.-Pope,

1 The muses,

Love, soft intruder, enters here,
And ent'ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.1

Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and generous 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,
Awand'ring, self-consuming fire,

But Hymen's kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;

Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the sun.

SEMICHORUS.

Oh, 'source of ev'ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother, husband, friend!
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;

Or views his smiling progeny:

What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move!

His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.

CHORUS.

Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;

1 Because Marcus loved the wife of Cassius, according to Buckingham's play.

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.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie

1 This was a very early production of our author, written at about (welve years old.-Pope.

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