Timotheus, placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire,

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 spires he rode
When he to fair Olympia pressed,
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 sang, 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, 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 oppressed,
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 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,

Or both divide the crown:

He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.

XXIV

Dryden.

THE QUIET LIFE

CONDEMNED to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blast or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.

Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levett to the grave descend:
Officious, innocent, sincere,

Of every friendless name the friend.

Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, lettered arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.