Ex. 100.

Alexander's Feast.

"Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son—

Aloft, in awful state,

The god-like hero sat

On his imperial throne.

His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound:
So should desert in arms be crown'd.

The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sat 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.

Timotheus, placed on high,
Amid the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touch'd the lyre :
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.-

The list'ning crowd admire the lofty sound:

A present deity! they shout around!

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound.-
With ravish'd 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!

Flush'd 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;

[the slain !

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew

The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;

And, while he heav'n and earth defied-
Changed his hand and check'd his pride.
He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius, great and good,
By too severe a fate,

Fall'n fall'n! fall'n! fall'n!
Fall'n from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood!
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounties 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 alter'd soul,

The various turns of fate 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, oh, think it worth enjoying!

*

*

*

The many rend the skies with loud applause :
So love was crown'd; but music won the cause.
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.

K

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 glitt❜ring 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,

Ex. 101.

Or both divide the crown :

He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down!

Rome.

Dryden.

O Rome! my country! city of the soul,
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts, their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye!

Whose agonies are evils of a day ;—
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago:
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers! Dost thou flow,
Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness?

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.
The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride.
She saw her glories, star by star, expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say—' Here was or is,' where all is doubly night?
Alas the lofty city! and alas

The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
Alas for Tully's voice and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page! but these shall be
Her resurrection: all beside, decay.

Alas for earth! for never shall we see

The brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free.

Ex. 102.

Lay of Horatius.

Lars Porsena of Clusium by the Nine Gods he swore

Byron.

That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more, By the Nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth

East and west, and north and south,

To summon his array.

East and west and south and north the messengers ride fast, And tower and town and cottage have heard the trumpet's blast,

Shame on the false Etruscan who lingers in his home,

When Porsena of Clusium is on the march for Rome.

The horsemen and the footmen are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place; from many a fruitful

plain;

From many a lonely hamlet, which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest of purple Apennine;
From lordly Volaterra, where scowls the far-famed hold,
Piled by the hands of giants for godlike kings of old;
From sea-girt Populonia, whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops fringing the southern sky;
From the proud mart of Pisae, queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's triremes heavy with fair-haired slaves;
From where sweet Clanis wanders through corn, and vines,
and flowers;

From where Cortona lifts to heaven her diadem of towers.
Tall are the oaks whose acorns drop in dark Auser's rill;
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs of the Ciminian hill ;
Beyond all streams Clitumnus is to the herdsman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves the great Volsinian mere.
But now no stroke of woodman is heard by Auser's rill;
No hunter tracks the stag's green path up the Ciminian hill;
Unwatched along Clitumnus grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharmed the water-fowl may dip in the Volsinian mere.
The harvests of Arretium, this year, old men shall
reap;
This year, young boys in Umbro shall plunge the struggling

sheep;

And in the vats of Luna, this year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls, whose sires have marched to Rome.

There be thirty chosen prophets, the wisest of the land,
Who alway by Lars Porsena both morning and evening stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty have turned the verses o'er,
Traced from the right, on linen white, by mighty seers of

yore.

And with one voice the Thirty have their glad answer given: 'Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena; go forth, beloved of Heaven;

Go, and return in glory to Clusium's royal dome;

And hang round Nurscia's altars the golden shields of Rome.'

*

But hark! the cry is Astur; and, lo! the ranks divide;
And the great Lord of Luna comes with his stately stride.
Upon his ample shoulders clangs loud the four-fold shield,
And in his hand he shakes the brand which none but he can
wield.

Then whirling up his broadsword with both hands to the height,

He rushed against Horatius and smote with all his might.