I DESCEND, ye Nine, descend and sing: | |
| The breathing instruments inspire, | |
| Wake into voice each silent string, | |
| And sweep the sounding lyre. | |
| In a sadly pleasing strain | 5 |
| Let the warbling lute complain; | |
| Let the loud trumpet sound, | |
| Till the roofs all around | |
| The shrill echoes rebound; | |
| While in more lengthen’d notes and slow | 10 |
| The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow. | |
| Hark! the numbers soft and clear | |
| Gently steal upon the ear; | |
| Now louder, and yet louder rise, | |
| And fill with spreading sounds the skies: | 15 |
| Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, | |
| In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats: | |
| Till by degrees, remote and small, | |
| 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 sink too low. | |
| If in the breast tumultuous joys arise, | |
| Music her soft assuasive voice applies; | 25 |
| Or when the soul is press’d with cares, | |
| Exalts her in enlivening airs. | |
| Warriors she fires with animated sounds, | |
| Pours balm into the bleeding lover’s wounds; | |
| Melancholy lifts her head, | 30 |
| Morpheus rouses from his bed, | |
| Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, | |
| List’ning Envy drops her snakes; | |
| Intestine war no more our passions wage, | |
| And giddy Factions hear away their rage. | 35 |
| |
III But when our country’s cause provokes to arms, | |
| How martial music ev’ry bosom warms! | |
| So when the first bold vessel dared the seas, | |
| High on the stern the Thracian rais’d his strain, | |
| While Agro saw her kindred trees | 40 |
| Descend from Pelion to the main: | |
| Transported demigods stood round, | |
| And men grew heroes at the sound, | |
| Inflamed 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 But when thro’ all th’ infernal bounds, | |
| Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds, | 50 |
| 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! | 55 |
| Dreadful gleams, | |
| Dismal screams, | |
| Fires that glow, | |
| Shrieks of woe, | |
| Sullen moans, | 60 |
| Hollow groans, | |
| And cries of tortured ghosts! | |
| But hark! he strikes the golden lyre, | |
| And see! the tortured ghosts respire! | |
| See, shady forms advance! | 65 |
| Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still, | |
| Ixion rests upon his wheel, | |
| And the pale spectres dance; | |
| The Furies sink upon their iron beds, | |
| And snakes uncurl’d hang list’ning round their heads. | 70 |
| |
V By the streams that ever flow, | |
| By the fragrant winds that blow | |
| O’er th’ Elysian flowers; | |
| By those happy souls who dwell | |
| In yellow meads of Asphodel, | 75 |
| Or Amaranthine bowers: | |
| By the heroes’ armed shades, | |
| Glitt’ring thro’ the gloomy glades; | |
| By the youths that died for love, | |
| Wand’ring in the myrtle grove, | 80 |
| Restore, restore Eurydice to life! | |
| Oh, take the husband, or return the wife! | |
| He sung, and Hell consented | |
| To hear the Poet’s prayer: | |
| Stern Proserpine relented, | 85 |
| 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 fast bound her, | 90 |
| 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, she dies! | |
| How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? | 95 |
| No crime was thine, if ’t is no crime to love. | |
| Now under hanging mountains, | |
| Beside the falls of fountains, | |
| Or where Hebrus wanders, | |
| Rolling in meanders, | 100 |
| All alone, | |
| Unheard, unknown, | |
| He makes his moan; | |
| And calls her ghost, | |
| For ever, ever, ever lost! | 105 |
| Now with Furies surrounded, | |
| Despairing, confounded, | |
| He trembles, he glows, | |
| Amidst Rhodope’s snows. | |
| See, wild as the winds, o’er the desert he flies! | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| Eurydice the floods, | |
| Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung. | |
| |
VII Music the fiercest grief can charm, | |
| And Fate’s severest 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 sound. | 125 |
| When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, | |
| Th’ immortal Powers incline their ear; | |
| Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, | |
| While solemn airs improve the sacred fire, | |
| And Angels lean from Heav’n to hear. | 130 |
| 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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