CHORUS. Revolving in his altered soul The various turns of chance below; The mighty master smiled, to see Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Never ending, still beginning, Take the good the gods provide thee. Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, Inglorious on the plain: Behold how they toss their torches on high, And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; To light him to his prey, And, like another Helen, fired another Troy! CHORUS, 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, 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, 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; GRAND CHORUS. At last divine Cecilia came, 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. A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY. FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony, And could not heave her head, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, From harmony, from heavenly harmony From harmony to harmony. Through all the compass of the notes it ran, What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Less than a God they thought there could not dwell That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF JOHN | But guide us upward to a better day. MILTON. And as these nightly tapers disappear, When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere; So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight; So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light. [From Religio Laici.] THE AVOIDANCE OF RELIGIOUS DISPUTES. A THOUSAND daily sects rise up and die; A thousand more the perished race supply; So all we make of Heaven's discovered will. Is, not to have it, or to use it ill. The danger's much the same; on several shelves If others wreck us, or we wreck ourselves. What' then remains, but, waiving each extreme, The tide of ignorance and pride to stem ? Neither so rich a treasure to forego, Nor proudly seek beyond our power to know: Faith is not built on disquisitions vain: The things we must believe are few and plain: But since men will believe more than they need, And every man will make himself a creed, In doubtful questions 'tis the safest way learn what unsuspected ancients To say: |