The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion

For the fair disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach

The sacred organ's praise ?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways

To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees unrooted left their place

Sequacious of the lyre :
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher :
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An Angel heard, and straight appear'd-
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.

Grand Chorus
As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blest above ;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

J. Dryden

LXXXVII

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT
Avenge, O Lord ! Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,

Forget not : In Thy book record their groans
Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rollid
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant : that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who, having learnt Thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

J. Milton

LXXXVIII

HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S

RETURN FROM IRELAND
The forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his Muses dear,

Nor in the shadows sing

His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,

Removing from the wall

The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,

But through adventurous war

Urgéd his active star :
And like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,

Did thorough his own Side

His fiery way divide :
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy ;

And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose ;

Then burning through the air he went And palaces and temples rent ;

And Caesar's head at last

Did through his laurels blast. 'Tis madness to resist or blame The face of angry heaven's flame; And if we would speak true,

Much to the Man is due. Who, from his private gardens, where He lived reserved and austere,

(As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot,) Could by industrious valour climb To ruin the great work of time,

And cast the Kingdoms old

Into another mould ; Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the ancient Rights in vain

But those do hold or break

As men are strong or weak; Nature, that hateth emptiness, Allows of penetration less,

And therefore must make room

Where greater spirits come. What field of all the civil war Where his were not the deepest scar?

And Hampton shows what part

He had of wiser art, Where, twining subtle fears with hope, He wove a net of such a scope,

That Charles himself might chase

To Carisbrook's narrow case,
That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn :

While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,

But with his keener eye

The axe's edge did try ; Nor call'd the Gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right;

But bow'd his comely head

Down, as upon a bed. - This was that memorable hour Which first assured the forced power :

So when they did design

The Capitol's first line, A Bleeding Head, where they begun, Did fright the architects to run ;

And yet in that the State

Foresaw its happy fate ! And now the Irish are ashamed To see themselves in one year tamed :

So much one man can do

That does both act and know. They can affirm his praises best, And have, though overcome, confest

How good he is, how just

And fit for highest trust. Nor yet grown stiffer with command, But still in the Republic's hand

How fit he is to sway

That can so well obey ! He to the Commons' feet presents A Kingdom for his first year's rents,

And(what he may) forbears

His fame, to make it theirs : And has his sword and spoils ungirt To lay them at the Public's skirt.

So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having kill'd, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch,

Where, when he first does lure,

The falconer has her sure.
-What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?

What may not others fear

If thus he crowns each year?
As Caesar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,

And to all States not free

Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his parti-colour'd mind,

But from this valour sad

Shrink underneath the plaid-
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,

Nor lay his hounds in near

The Caledonian deer.
But Thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;

And for the last effect

Still keep the sword erect :
Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,

The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

A. Marvell

LXXXIX

LYCIDAS
Elegy on a Friend drowned in the Irish Channes

1637
Yet once more, Oye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude