TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

STROPHE I.

YE shades, where sacred truth is fought;

Groves, where immortal sages taught;
Where heav’nly visions Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay inspir'd!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood

Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses' fhades.

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IO

ANTISTROPHE I.
O heav'n-born Sisters! fource of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,
Moral Truth and myitic Song !
To what new clime, what distant sky,

Forsaken, friendlcis, tholl ye fly?
Say, will ye blets the bleak Atlantic more?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

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STROPHE II.

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When Athens finks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians ipurn her dust;
Perhaps ev'n Britain's utmost shore
Shall cafe to blush with strangers' gore :
See Arts her savage sons control,

And Athens rising near the pole!
"Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

ANTISTROPHE.

ANTISTROPHE II.

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Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball ?
Freedom and arts together fall;
Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are Naves.
Oh curs'd effects of civil hate,

In ev'ry age, in ev'ry ftate!
Still, hen the luit of tyrant pow'r succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, fome Tully bleeds.

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CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

SEMICHORUS.

OH tyrant Love! haft thou possest

The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And arts but loften us to feel thy flame,
Love, loft intruder, enters here,

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But ent’ring learns to be fincere.
Marcus with biuihes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtur, dost thou blame desire

Which Nature hath imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonelt fire

The mild and gen'rous breast?

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CHORUS
Love's purer flames the gods approve ;
The gods and Brutus bend to love :

Brutus for absent Porcia fighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes,

What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand'ring, self-consuming fire.
But Hymen's kinder flames unite,

And burn for ever one
Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,

Productive as the sun.

Oh

SEMICHORUS.

Oh, source of ev'ry social tye,
United with, and mutual joy!

What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother, husband, friend!

Whether his hoary fire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise ;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye,
Or views his smiling progeny:
What tender passions take their turns,

What home-felt raptures move!
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,

With rev'rence, hope, and love.

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CHORUS.

Hence guilty joys, diftastes, furmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises,

Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine.
Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;

Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

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TO THE MEMORY OF

AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.

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WHAT beck’ning ghoft along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ? 'Tis the !---but why that bleeding botom gord! Why dimly gleams the visionary sword ? Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,

5 Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part ? Is there no bright reversion in the sky For those who greatly think, or bravely die ?

Why bade ye elle, ye Pow'rs, her soul aspire Above the vulgar flight of low desire ? Ambition first Iprung from your blest abodes, The glorious fault of angels and of gods : Thence to their images on earth it flows,

I5
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most fouls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Uteless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres ;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep.

From there, perhaps, (ere Nature bade her die,)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

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And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race:

But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's

blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death :
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.

Thus,

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Thus, if eternal Justite rules the ball,

• 35 Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall: On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent herses Mhall besiege your gates; There passengers shall stand, and pointing say, (While the long fun’rals blacken all the way,) Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steel'd, And curs’d with hearts unknowing how to yield. Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perith all, whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow 45 For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

What can atone, (oh ever injur'd fhade !) Thy fatę unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid ? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear, Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier. By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos’d, 51 By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd; By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd! What though no friends in sable weeds appear,

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Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polith'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?

Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be dress’d,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast :
There shall the Morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roles of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy relics 'made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. 70
How lov’d, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
VOL. I.

I

Poets

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