FROM PHILASTER.

I FOUND him sitting by a fountain-side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: but ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon them he would weep,
As if he meant to make them grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,
Expressed his grief; and to my thoughts did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wished; so that methought I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertained him,
Who was as glad to follow.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

WHY THUS LONGING?

WHY thus longing, thus forever sighing,
For the far-off, unattained and dim,
While the beautiful, all round thee lying,
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?
Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching,

All thy restless yearnings it would still;
Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching
Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill.
Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw,
If no silken cord of love hath bound thee
To some little world through weal and woe;

If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten,
No fond voices answer to thine own;
If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten,
By daily sympathy and gentle tone.

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark,

Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words. Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps;

At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep,

The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born!

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights

unholy,

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous

wings,

And the night-raven sings;

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathéd smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek,
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.
Come and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovéd pleasures free,
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull Night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of Sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill
Through the high wood echoing shrill ;
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest,
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savory dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the livelong daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale
With stories told of many a feat:
How fairy Mab the junkets eat,
She was pinched and pulled, she said,
And he, by friar's lantern led;
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And, crop-full, out of doors he flings
Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize

Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry, -
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream;
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Johnson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony,

That Orpheus' self may heave his head-
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

JOHN MILTON.

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,

Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

SHELLEY.

WHERE music dwells Lingering, and wandering on, as loath to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.

WORDSWORTH.

MUSIC hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

CONGREVE.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR THE POWER OF MUSIC.

AN ODE.

'T WAS at the royal feast, for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around, Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound;

(So should desert in arms be crowned.) The lovely Thais, by his side, Sate like a blooming Eastern bride

In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

CHORUS.

Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.
Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touched the lyre;
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above,
(Such is the power of mighty love.)
A dragon's fiery form belied the god ;
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,

When he to fair Olympia pressed;
And while he sought her snowy breast;
Then round her slender waist he curled,
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign
of the world.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity! they shout around;

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.

CHORUS.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.

The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse

Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius, great and good;

By too severe a fate, 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 looks the joyless victor sate, Revolving in his altered soul

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

CHORUS.

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;
"T was 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; Honor, 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.

CHORUS.

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!

Those 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 !

WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, -
Possest beyond the muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 't is said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,

Amid the cords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed; his eyes, on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.