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Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast look the joyless victor sat,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled, to see
That love was in the next degree;
'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying!
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So love was crowned, but music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again :

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;

As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.
Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise:

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain :

Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;
And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,

While organs yet were mute;

Timotheus, to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

ODE FOR MUSIC ON
ON ST. CECILIA'S

PAY,

(9)

ALEXANDER

POPE.

DESCEND, ye Nine! descend and sing:
The breathing instruments inspire;
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 lengthened 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.

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 pressed with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.

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

Morpheus rouses from her bed,

Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions bear away their rage.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms,
How martial music every bosom warms!
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian raised 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,
Inflamed with glory's charms:
Each chief his sevenfold shield displayed,
And half unsheathed the shining blade;
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound,
To arms, to arms, to arms!

But when through all the infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,

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

What scenes appeared,

O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,

Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,

And cries of tortured ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see the tortured ghosts respire,
See, shady forms advance!

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 uncurled hang listening round their heads.

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Ŏr amaranthine bowers;
By the heroes' armèd shades,
Glittering thro' the gloomy glades;
By the youths that died for love,
Wandering 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.

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