CHORUS I. OF ATHENIANS. STROPHE I. YE fhades, where facred truth is fought; Groves, where immortal fages taught, In vain your guiltless laurels ftood War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, ANTISTROPHE I. Oh! heav'n-born Sifters! fource of art! Who charm the fenfe or mend the heart; To what new clime, what distant sky, Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic fhore, STROPHE II. When Athens finks by fates unjust, M See Arts her favage fons control, And Athens rifing near the pole! Till fome new tyrant lifts his purple hand, And civil Madness tears them from the land. ANTISTROPHE II. Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball? Freedom and arts together fall; Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves, 25 And men, once ignorant, are flaves. Oh! curs'd effects of civil hate, In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state! 30 Still when the luft of tyrant Pow'r fucceeds 32 CHORUS II. OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS. SEMICHORUS. OH, H, tyrant Love! haft thou poffeft The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast? Wifdom and wit in vain reclaim, And arts but soften us to feel thy flame. But ent'ring learns to be fincere. 10 CHORUS. Love's purer flames the gods approve; And fterner Caffius melts at Junia's eyes. What is loose love? a tranfient gust A vapour fed from wild defire, Chafte as cold Cynthia's virgin light, SEMICHORUS. Oh! fource of ev'ry focial tye, 15 20 25 United with, and mutual joy! What various joys on one attend, As fon, as father, brother, husband, friend! What home-felt raptures move! His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns, 35 CHORUS. Hence guilty joys, distastes, furmises, 40 44 CHORUS III. I. DARK is the maze poor mortals tread; We cannot change but for the worse? II. With fair pretence of foreign force, The Gauls themselves, our greatest foes, 5 ΤΟ III. That Julius, with ambitious thoughts, That free-born spirits fhould obey Wretches who know not how to fway! IV. Late we repent our hafty choice, Better that we a while had borne Ev'n all thofe ills which most displease, Than fought a cure far worse than the disease. CHORUS IV. OUR Vows thus cheerfully we fing, May Rome be freed from war's alarms, And taxes heavy to be borne; May the beware of foreign arms, And fend them back with noble fcorn. 15 20 24 12 |