white steed,

"But who the expected husband, husband is?

His hands, methinks, are bath'd in slaughter.

Ah me! what ghastly spectre's yon, Comes, in his pale shroud, bleeding, after?

"Pale as he is, here lay him, lay him down,

Oh, lay his cold head on my pillow! Take aff, take aff these bridal weeds, And crown my careful head with yellow.

Unheedful of my dule and sorrow,
But ere the toofal of the night,
He lay a corpse on the braes of Yarrow.

"Much I rejoic'd that woeful, woeful day,

I sung, my voice the woods returning ; But lang ere night the spear was flown That slew my love, and left me mourning.

"What can my barbarous, barbarous father do,

But with his cruel rage pursue me?
My lover's blood is on thy spear;
How canst thou, barbarous man, then woo
me?

"My happy sisters may be, may be proud;

With cruel and ungentle scoffing,
May bid me seek on Yarrow's braes
My lover nailed in his coffin.

"My brother Douglas may upbraid,
And strive with threat'ning words to move
me;

My lover's blood is on thy spear,

How canst thou ever bid me love thee?

"Yes, yes, prepare the bed, the bed of love,

With bridal sheets my body cover;
Unbar, ye bridal maids, the door,
Let in the expected husband lover!

"Pale, indeed, oh, lovely, lovely youth!
Forgive, forgive so foul a slaughter,
And lie all night between my breasts,
No youth shall ever lie there after."

Return, return, oh, mournful, mournful bride!

Return and dry thy useless sorrow :
Thy lover heeds naught of thy sighs,
He lies a corpse on the braes of Yarrow!

[ANONYMOUS. 1726.] WHY, LOVELY CHARMER. The Hive.

WHY, lovely charmer, tell me why,
So very kind, and yet so shy?
Why does that cold forbidding air
Give damps of sorrow and despair?
Or why that smile my soul subdue,
And kindle up my flames anew?

In vain you strive, with all your art,
By turns to fire and freeze my heart:
When I behold a face so fair,
So sweet a look, so soft an air,
My ravish'd soul is charm'd all o'er,-
I cannot love thee less or more.

Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!

See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,

With all the incense of the breathing spring:

See lofty Lebanon his head advance, See nodding forests on the mountains dance:

See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise, And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!

Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;

Prepare the way! a God, a God appears:
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo, earth receives him from the bending
skies!

Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys,

rise ;

With heads declined, ye cedars, homage

And bid new music charm the unfolding

ear :

The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,

And leap exulting like the bounding roe. No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear,

From every face he wipes off every tear. In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,

And Hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.

As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care, Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,

Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,

By day o'ersees them, and by night protects,

The tender lambs he raises in his arms, Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom

But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.

Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ;

Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,

And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.

The swain, in barren deserts with surprise See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise; And start, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear

New falls of water murmuring in his ear. On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.

Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,

The spiry fir and shapely bor adorn ;

To leafless shrubs the flowering palms succeed,

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,

And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead;

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.

The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk and speckled snake, Pleased the green lustre of the scales survey,

And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise !

Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes! See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn; See future sons, and daughters yet unborn, In crowding ranks on every side arise, Demanding life, impatient for the skies! See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend; See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,

And heap'd with products of Sabean springs,

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,

And break upon thee in a flood of day. No more the rising sun shall gild the

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

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

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
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;

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

In a dying, dying fall.

By Music, minds an equal temper know,

Not swell too high, nor sink too low; If in the brief tumultuous joys arise, Music her soft, assuasive voice applies;

Or, when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enliv'ning airs :

Warriors she fires with animated sounds, Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds;

Melancholy lifts her head, 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.

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

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

O'er th' Elysian flow'rs;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,

Ör amaranthine bow'rs;
By the heroes' armed shades,
Glitt'ring through the gloomy glades,
By the youths that died for love,
Wand'ring in the myrtle grove;
Restore, restore Eurydice to life:
O, take the Husband, or return the Wife!
He sung, 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! Though Fate had fast bound her, With Styx nine times round her, Yet Music and Love were victorious.

EASE IN WRITING.

TRUE ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

to dance.

love.

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, And fate's severest rage disarm; Music can soften pain to ease, 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.

When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,

Th' immortal pow'rs 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. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n; His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell, Hers lift the soul to Heav'n.

offence,

The sound must seem an echo to the

sense.

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently

blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar ;

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labours and the words move slow;

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main,

Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,

And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove

Now burns with glory and then melts with love;

Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, [flow: Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,

And the world's victor stood subdued by sound!

The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.

ON VIRTUE.

Essay on Man.

KNOW thou this truth, enough for man to know,

"Virtue alone is Happiness below?" The only point where human bliss stands still,