Lyra Heroica Part 6

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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds.

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.

_Dryden._

XXIV

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 coa.r.s.ely kind; Nor, lettered arrogance, deny Thy praise to merit unrefined.

When fainting Nature called for aid, And hovering death prepared the blow, His vigorous remedy displayed The power of art without the show.

In misery's darkest caverns known, His ready help was ever nigh, Where hopeless anguish poured his groan, And lonely want retired to die.

No summons mocked by chill delay, No petty gains disdained by pride: The modest wants of every day The toil of every day supplied.

His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the eternal Master found His single talent well employed.

The busy day, the peaceful night, Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; His frame was firm, his powers were bright, Though now his eightieth year was nigh.

Then, with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.

_Johnson._

XXV

CHEVY CHACE

THE HUNTING

G.o.d prosper long our n.o.ble king, Our lives and safeties all; A woeful hunting once there did In Chevy-Chace befall;

To drive the deer with hound and horn Erle Percy took his way; The child may rue that is unborn, The hunting of that day.

The stout Erle of Northumberland A vow to G.o.d did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summer's days to take,

The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chace To kill and bear away.

These tydings to Erle Douglas came, In Scotland where he lay:

Who sent Erle Percy present word, He wold prevent his sport.

The English Erle, not fearing that, Did to the woods resort

With fifteen hundred bow-men bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well in time of neede To ayme their shafts aright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran, To chase the fallow deere: On Monday they began to hunt, Ere daylight did appeare;

And long before high noone they had An hundred fat buckes slaine; Then having dined, the drovyers went To rouse the deere againe.

The bow-men mustered on the hills, Well able to endure; Their backsides all, with special care That day were guarded sure.

The hounds ran swiftly through the woods, The nimble deere to take, And with their cryes the hills and dales An echo shrill did make.

Lord Percy to the quarry went, To view the slaughtered deere: Quoth he, 'Erle Douglas promised This day to meet me here,

But if I thought he wold not come, No longer wold I stay.'

With that, a brave younge gentleman Thus to the Erle did say:

'Lo, yonder doth Erle Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish speares All marching in our sight;

All men of pleasant Tivydale, Fast by the river Tweede': 'O, cease your sports,' Erle Percy said, 'And take your bowes with speede;

And now with me, my countrymen, Your courage forth advance, For there was never champion yet, In Scotland or in France,

That ever did on horsebacke come, But if my hap it were, I durst encounter man for man, And with him break a speare.'

THE CHALLENGE