Songs of
Fancy

Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native Wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating Cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice.

These delights, if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

JOHN MILTON.

Sabrina Fair

The Spirit sings:

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honor's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen, and save!

Listen, and appear to us,

In name of great Oceanus;

By all the Nymphs that Nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answered have.
Listen, and save.

[SABRINA rises, attended by water-nymphs, and
sings.]

By the rushy-fringèd bank,

Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank,

My sliding Chariot stays,

Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen
Of turkis blue, and emerald green,
That in the channel strays;

Songs of
Fancy

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

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
(So should desert in arms be crowned.)
The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sate 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.

Chorus.

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 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.
The listening 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.

Chorus.

With ravish'd ears

The monarch hears,

Songs of
Fancy

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seeth-

ing,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,