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,

Possessed beyond the Muse's painting:

By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined; Till once, 'tis 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.

With woful measures, wan Despair Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;

A solemn, strange, and mingled air; 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whispered promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!

Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She called on Echo still, through all the song;

And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,

And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. And longer had she sung; - but with a frown

Revenge impatient rose: He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder down;

And with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full
of woe!

And, ever and anon, he beat
The doubling drum, with furious
heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it called on Love, now
raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more
sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round a holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how altered was its sprightlier tone,

When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,

Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and
Dryad known;

The oak-crowned Sisters, and their

chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green:

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;

But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best;

They would have thought, who heard the strain,

They saw in Tempe's vale, her native maids,

Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed

the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:

Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;

And he, amidst his frolic and his play,

As if he would the charming air

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 spheres he rode
When he to fair Olympia prest,
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!

With ravished ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god; Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,

Of Bacchus ever fair and ever

young:

The jolly god in triumph comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!
Flushed with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he
comes, he comes!

Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
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.

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,
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 opprest

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 furi ous joy:

And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;