Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure, 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, CHORUS. Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; Rich the treasure, Swect the pleasure, CHORUS. Happy, happy, happy pair ! None but the brave, None but the brave, Amid the tuneful choir, With flying fingers touched the lyre ; And heavenly joys inspire. When he to fair Olympia pressed ; And while he sought her snowy breast ; of the world. With ravished ears Affects to nod, CHORUS. Affects to nod, sling, The jolly god in triumph comes ; Flushed with a purple grace He shows his honest face : comes ! Drinking joys did first ordain ; Soothed with the sound the king grew vai Fought all his battles o'er again ; And thrice he routed all his foes ; and thrice slew the slain. The master saw the inadness 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 : By too severe a fate, And weltering in his blood; With not a friend to close his eyes. 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 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, Lovely Thais sits beside thee, The many rend the skies with loud applause ; And sounding lyre, At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, And added length to solemn sounds, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown ; He raised a mortal to the skies. She drew an angel down. GRAND CHORUS. At last divine Cecilia came, The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, Now strike the golden lyre again : And added length to solemn sounds, A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown Break his bands of sleep asunder, before. Or both divide the crown ; He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down. JOHN DRYDEN. Revenge ! revenge ! Timotheus cries, See the furies arise ! THE PASSIONS. 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, The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 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. 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. AN ODE FOR MUSIC. CHORUS. With woful measures wan Despair, The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-e Low, sullen sounds, his grief beguiled, queen, A solemn, strange, and mingled air ; Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen "T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild. Peeping from forth their alleys green ; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, And Sport leapt up, and seizeddhis beechen sp What was thy delightful measure ? Still it whispered promised pleasure, Last came Joy's ecstatic trial : And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! He, with viny crown advancing, Still would her touch the strain prolong ; First to the lively pipe his hand addrest ; And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol, She called on Echo still, through all the song ; Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the l And where her sweetest theme she chose, They would have thought who heard the str A soft responsive voice was heard at every close ; They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native ma And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her Amidst the festal-sounding shades, golden hair. To some unwearied minstrel dancing, And longer had she sung — but, with a frown, While, as his flying fingers kissed the string Revenge impationt rose ; Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic roui Hethrew his blood-stained sword in thunderdown; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unboui And, with a withering look, And he, amidst his frolic play, The war-denouncing trumpet took, As if he would the charming air repay, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe ! And ever and anon he beat O Music ! sphere-descended maid, The doubling drum with furious heat ; Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid ! And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Why, goddess ! why, to us denied, Dejected Pity, at his side, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ? Her soul-subduing voice applied, As, in that loved Athenian bower, Yet still he kept his wild, unaltered mien, You learned an all-commanding power, While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting Thy mimic soul, 0 nymph endeared, from his head. Can well recall what then it heard ; Where is thy native simple heart, Devote to virtue, fancy, art ? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime ! called on Hate. Thy wonders, in that godlike age, Fill thy recording sister's page ; With eyes upraised, as one inspired, 'T is said - and I believe the tale Pale Melancholy sate retired ; Thy humblest reed could more prevail, And from her wild sequestered seat, Had more of strength, diviner rage, In notes by distance made more sweet, Than all which charms this laggard age, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive E'en all at once together found, Cecilia's mingled world of sound. And, dashing soft from rocks around, O, bid our vain endeavors cease ; Bubbling runnels joined the sound ; Revive the just designs of Greece ! Through glades and glooms the mingled meas. Return in all thy simple state, ure stole; Confirm the tales her sons relate ! Oro'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, But 0, how altered was its sprightlier tone When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, From harmony, from heavenly harmony, Her bow across her shoulder flung, This universal frame began ; Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, soul; WILLIAM COLI The tuneful voice was heard from high, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the blessed above ; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky. JOHN DRYDEN. MAN. How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, His listening brethren stood around, How complicate, how wonderful, is man ! How passing wonder He who made him such ! To worship that celestial sound. Who centred in our make such strange extremes, Less than a God they thought there could not dwell From different natures marvellously mixed, Within the hollow of that shell, Connection exquisite of distant worlds ! Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Midway from nothing to the Deity ! A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt ! Though sullied and dishonored, still divine ! Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust 1 Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! A worm ! a God ! - I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger, Cries, hark ! the foes come ; Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat. And wondering at her own. How reason reels ! 0, what a miracle to man is man ! The soft complaining flute Triumphantly distressed! Whatjoy! what dread ! Alternately transported and alarmed ! What can preserve my life? or what destroy ? Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave ; Legions of angels can't confine me there. MAN — WOMAN. Man's home is everywhere. On ocean's flood, But 0, what art can teach, Where the strong ship with storm-defying tether What human voice can reach, Doth link in stormy brotherhood Earth's utmost zones together, Where'er the red gold glows, the spice-trees wave, Notes that wing their heavenly ways Where the rich diamond ripens, mid the flame To mend the choirs above. Of vertic suns that ope the stranger's grave, He with bronzed cheek and daring step doth Orpheus could lead the savage race ; rove ; And trees uprooted left their place, He with short pang and slight Doth turn him from the checkered light But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher ; Ofthe fair moon through his own forests dancing, When to her organ vocal breath was given, Where music, joy, and love Were his young hours entrancing ; And where ambition's thunder-claim Points out his lot, Or fitful wealth allures to roam, There doth he make his home, Repining not. DR. EDWARD YOUNG. It is not thus with Woman. The far halls, But, lovely child ! thy magic stole Though ruinous and lone, At once into my inmost soul, Where first her pleased ear drank a nursing With feelings as thy beauty fair, mother's tone; And left no other vision there. To me thy parents are unknown; Glad would they be their child to own! And well they must have loved before, If since thy birth they loved not more. The bower where Love her timid footsteps led; Thou art a branch of noble stem, And seeing thee I figure them. What many a childless one would give, If thou in their still home wouldst live, Though in thy face no family-line Might sweetly say, “This babe is mine" ! In time thou wouldst become the same Where every rose hath in its cup a bee, As their own child, — all but the name ! JOHN WILSOX. MOTHER AND CHILD. THE wind blew wide the casement, and within - It was the loveliest picture ! - a sweet child Lay in its mother's arms, and drew its life, “Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; In pauses, from the fountain, — the white round | Part shaded by loose tresses, soft and dark, 'T is woman's whole existence. Man may range The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart, Concealing, but still showing, the fair realm Of so much rapture, as green shadowing trees Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange With beauty shroud the brooklet. The red lips Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, Were parted, and the cheek upon the breast And few there are whom these cannot estrange : | Lay close, and, like the young leaf of the flower, Men have all these resources, we but one, — Wore the same color, rich and warm and fresh:- And such alone are beautiful. Its eye, Looked archly on its world, — the little imp, As if it knew even then that such a wreath Were not for all; and with its playful hands ART thou a thing of mortal birth It drew aside the robe that hid its realm, Whose happy home is on our earth? | And peeped and laughed aloud, and so it laid Does human blood with life imbue Its head upon the shrine of such pure joys, Those wandering veins of heavenly blue And, laughing, slept. And while it slept, the tears That stray along thy forehead fair, Of the sweet mother fell upon its cheek, Lost mid a gleam of golden hair? Tears such as fall from April skies, and bring 0, can that light and airy breath The sunlight after. They were tears of joy; Steal from a being doomed to death ? And the true heart of that young mother then Those features to the grave be sent Grew lighter, and she sang unconsciously The silliest ballad-song that ever yet To fold her sabbath wings above its couch. WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. FORTUNE. FRAGMENT FROM "FANNY." Delights in tantalizing and tormenting. BYRON. |