Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over violent or over civil

That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,

He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laughed himself from Court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell

On Absalom and wise Achitophel;

Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,

He left not faction, but of that was left.

MILTON.

(Lines printed under the engraved portrait of Milton, in Tonson's folio edition of the "Paradise Lost," 1688.)

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last:
The force of Nature could no farther go;
To make a third she joined the former two.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

THIS ode, in honor of St. Cecilia's Day, 1697, had for its secondary title "The Power of Music." The last four or more lines of each stanza were repeated as a chorus.

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne;

His valiant peers were placed around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound

(So should desert in arms be crowned).
The lovely Thaïs, by his side,

Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus, placed on high,
Amid the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above
(Such is the power of mighty love).
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
When he to fair Olympia pressed:
And while he sought her snowy breast,

Then round her slender waist he curled,

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world. The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,

A present deity, they shout around;

A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears

The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musicians sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face;

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew
the slain.

The master saw the madness rise,
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
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 sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor 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 gods 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 gods.

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.

CYMON AND IPHIGENIA.

THE story of Cymon and Iphigenia is taken from Boccaccio. The oldest son of Aristippus, a wealthy lord of Cyprus, though tall and comely, was stupid, so that people called him Cymon, which is said to mean "beast." Finding he could be taught nothing, his father sent him to a farm to live with slaves. Cymon, walking through the woods, found, near a spring, a maiden asleep and attended by two women and a man-servant. The sight of her beauty awakened love in the idiot's heart, and also a resolve to become worthy of her. Returning to his father's court, he applied himself diligently to his studies and made astonishing progress. At length he sued for the maiden's hand, but found she was already promised to Pasimond of Rhodes. Determined still to win her and tell her what she had done for him, he fitted out a vessel and captured her, while sailing to her future husband's home. Scarcely had he taken her when a storm arose and drove his vessel out of its course. The ship was stranded on the shore of Rhodes close by the ship of Pasimond. The latter, after a fight, recovered Iphigenia, and Cymon was cast into prison. But there Lysimachus, the ruler of Rhodes, made friends with Cymon, and they plotted to recapture Iphigenia. Lysimachus was in love with Cassandra, the promised bride of Pasimond's younger brother, who was to be married on the same day as Pasimond. In the midst of the feast Lysimachus and Cymon enter the hall; Cymon, having killed Pasimond and his brother, fled with Iphigenia in a vessel which was waiting for them. Together with Lysimachus and Cassandra they sailed to Candia, where both pairs of lovers were married and lived till peace was made with the friends of the slain. Then they settled in their respective homes.

In that sweet isle where Venus keeps her court,
And every Grace and all the Loves resort;