Till, by degrees, remote and small, The strains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall. By Music, minds an equal temper know, Warriors she fires with animated sounds; Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, But when our country's cause provokes to arms, So when the first bold vessel dared the seas, High on the stern the Thracian raised his strain, 40 Descend from Pelion to the main. Transported demi-gods stood round, And men grew heroes at the sound, Inflamed with glory's charms: Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd, And half unsheathed the shining blade: And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound To arms, to arms, to arms! 45 But when, through all the infernal bounds, Love, strong as Death, the Poet led O'er all the dreary coasts! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortured ghosts! But hark! he strikes the golden lyre! See, shady forms advance; Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still, Ixion rests upon his wheel, And the pale spectres dance, The Furies sink upon their iron beds, 50 55 60 65 69 And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their heads. By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow O'er the Elysian flowers; By those happy souls who dwell Or amaranthine bowers; By the heroes' armed shades, Glittering through the gloomy glades; Wandering in the myrtle grove, 75 80 Restore, restore Eurydice to life: O take the Husband, or return the Wife! A conquest how hard and how glorious! Yet Music and Love were victorious. But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes: Beside the fall of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, 95 Rolling in meanders, Unheard, unknown, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's snows: 100 105 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, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung. Music the fiercest grief can charm, 115 And fate's severest rage disarm: Music can soften pain to ease, 120 And make despair and madness please: And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confined the sound. POPE. 125 130 HAPPINESS. O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim! Plant of celestial seed! if dropt below, 10 15 Where grows?—where grows it not? If vain our toil, And fled from monarchs, ST. JOHN! dwells with thee. Those call it pleasure, and contentment these; 20 25 Who thus define it, say they more or less To trust in everything, or doubt of all. Than this, that happiness is happiness? Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease. Remember, man, "the Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;" And makes what Happiness we justly call, Subsist not in the good of one, but all. 30 35 |