What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul! can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring :
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting?

TWO CHORUSES

TO

THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

STROPHE 1.

YE shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal sages taught:
Where heavenly visions Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay inspir'd!

In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses' shades.

ANTISTROPHE 1.

O heaven-born sisters! source of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;

Who lead fair virtue's train along,
Moral truth and mystic song!
To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?

Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

STROPHE 11.

When Athens sinks by fates unjust, When wild Barbarians spurn her dust; Perhaps ev'n Britain's utmost shore Shall cease to blush with strangers' gore : See arts her savage sons control, And Athens rising near the pole! Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand, And civil madness tears them from the laud.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Ye gods! what justice rules the ball?
Freedom and arts together fall;

Fools grant whate'er ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are slaves.
Oh, curs'd effects of civil hate,
In every age, in every state!

Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

SEMICHORUS.

O tyrant Love; hast thou possess'd
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And arts but soften us to feel thy flame.

Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But, entering, learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, virtue, dost thou blame desire
Which nature hath impress'd?
Why, nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and generous breast?

CHORUS.

Love's purer flames the gods approve;
The gods and Brutus bend to love :
Brutus for absent Porcia sighs,

And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wandering, self-consuming fire.
But Hymen's kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the sun.

SEMICHORUS.

Oh, source of every social tie, United wish, and mutual joy! What various joys on one attend, As son, as father, brother, husband, friend! Whether his hoary sire he spies, While thousand grateful thoughts arise; Or meets his spouse's fonder eye, Or views his smiling progeny;

What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move!
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With reverence, hope, and love.

CHORUS.

Hence, guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises,
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine.

Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

EPISTLES.

TO

ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND
MORTIMER1.

SUCH were the notes thy once-lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld and lost! admir'd and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd!
Bless'd in each science! bless'd in every strain !
Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear-in vain !

For him thou oft hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him despis'd the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great; Dextrous the craving, fawning crowd, to quit, And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear) Recal those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays; Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

1 Sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnell's poems, published by our author after the Earl's imprisonment in the Tower and retreat into the country, in the year 1721.