While in more lengthen'd notes and now, 10
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.

Hark! the numbers foft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise

And fill with spreading founds the skies ; 15
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;

'Till, by degrees, remote and fmally

The strains decay,
And melt away,

20
In a dying, dying fall,

II.
By Music, minds an equal temper know,

Nor swell too high, nor finik too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, afluasive voice applies ; 25

Or, when the soul is press’d with cares,

Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated founds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:
Melancholy lifts her head,

30
Morpheus rouzes from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,

List’ning Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our Paffions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away

their

rage. 35

III.
But when our Country's cause provokes to Arins,
How martial music ev'ry borom warms!

So

1

So when the first bold vertel dar'd the feas,
High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain,

While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main.

Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the found,

Enfam'd with glory's charms:
Each chief his sev’nfold shield display'd, 45
And half unsheath'd the shining blade :
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms, to arms, to arms !

IV.

55

But when thro' all th' infernal bounds,
Which Aaming Phlegeton surrounds,

Love, strong as Death, the Poet led

To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear’d,
O'er all the dreary coasts!

Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrięks of woe,
Sullen moans,

Hollow groans,

And cries of tortur'd ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire,

See, shady forms advance !
Thy stone, Sysiphus, ftands still,
Ixion refts.upon his wheel,

And the pale Spectres-dance!

60

65

The

The Furies fink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang lift'ning round their heads.

V.

75

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow

O’er th’ Elysian flow'rs;
By those happy fouls who dwell
In yellow meads of Afphodel,

Or Amaranthine bow'rs;
By the hero's armed fhades,
Glitt'ring thro’ the gloomy glades;
By the youths that dy'd for love,

Wand'ring in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice to life:
Oh take the husband, or return the wife !

8

85

He fung, and hell consented

To hear the Poet's prayer;
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair.

Thus song could prevail

O'er death, and o'er hell,
A conquest how hard and how glorious ?

Tho' fate had faft bound her

With Styx nine times round her, Yet music and love were victorious.

VI.

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, the dies !
How wilt thou now the fatal fisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.

Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in Mzanders,
All alone,

JOO
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan ;

And calls her ghoft,
For ever, ever, ever loft!
Now with Furies surrounded,

105 Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows,

Amidst Rhodope's snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the defart he flies; Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals cries

Ah see, he dies !
Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung,
Eurydice still trembled on his tongue,

Eurydice the woods,
Eurydice the floods,

115 Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

VII.
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's feverest rage disarm:
Music can soften pain to ease,

120
And make despair and madness please :
Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confin'd the found.

When the full organ joins the tuneful quire;

Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls afpire; While folemn airs improve the facred fire;

And Angels lean from heav'n to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater power is giv'n; His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,

Hers lift the soul to heav'n.

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