But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortured ghosts respire;
See, shady forms advance!

Thy stone, O Sisyphus,* stands still;
Ixion+ rests upon his wheel,

And the pale spectres dance;
The furies sink upon their iron beds,

And snakes, uncurl'd, hung list'ning round their heads.
"By the streams that ever flow;
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers;

By those happy souls who dwell,
In yellow meads of Asphodel,
Or Amaranthine bowers;
By the heroes' armed shades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades,
By the youths that died for love,
Wandering in the myrtle grove;

Restore, restore Eurydice to life!
Oh, take the husband, or restore 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.

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes;
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.
Now, under hanging mountains,

Beside the fall of fountains,-
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in meanders,—

* Sisyphus, the first king of Corinth, noted for his robberies, for which he was doomed in the infernal regions to roll a huge stone up a mountain.

† Ixion the son of Phlegyas a king of Thessaly, said to have been struck with thunder to Tartarus, and by order of Jupiter, tied with twisted snakes to a wheel which continually turned round.

The poet Orpheus married Eurydice, who died from the bite of a serpent. Orpheus in order to recover her to life, went with his lyre to the regions of death, and so pleased Pluto Proserpine with his playing, that they promised to restore Euridice to life, provided Orpheus did not look behind till he reached Earth. Orpheus accepted the condition, but when near to earth looked back to see if Eurydice was following him, and she instantly vanished from his sight.

All alone,

Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan,
And calls her ghost,

For ever, ever, ever, lost,-
Now with furies surrounded,
Despairing and confounded

He trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope's snows,

See! wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies!
Hark! Homus resounds with the Bacchanal's cries!-

Ah see, he dies!

Yet e'en 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.
This the divine Cecilia found:

And to her Maker's praise confined the sound.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,

To bright Cecilia greater power is given;
His numbers raised a shade from hell,

Her's lifts the soul to heaven.

Alexander Pope.

THE BARD.

'Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!*
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Tho' fanned by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state!
Helm, nor hauberk's† twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from mighty fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

He wound with toilsome march his long array.

Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance;

'To arms!' cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance.

* Edward I., when he conquered Wales, ordered all the Bards that fell into

his hands, to be put to death.

† Hauberks-a Coat of Mail made of steel rings.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe,

With haggard eyes the poet stood-
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

Hark, how the giant oak, and desert cave,

Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O king! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe,
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hushed the stormy main :
Brave Urien sleeps upon his cragged bed,

Mountains, ye mourn in vain,

Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,

Smeared with gore, and ghostly pale :

Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;
The famished eagle screams and passes by-
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,

Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries-
No more I weep. They do not sleep,

On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,

I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land:

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weave with bloody hands, the tissue of thy line.'

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race,
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace:

Mark the year, and mark the night,

When Severn shall re-echo with affright

The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!*

She wolft of France, with unrelenting fangs

That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,

From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs

The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait!

Edward II., who was cruelly butchered by Isabel of France, his Queen, in Berkley Castle.

† Isabel.

Amazement in his van, with flight combined,
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind.
Fill high the sparkling-bowl,

The rich repast prepare,

Reft of a crown,* he yet may share the feast;
Close by the regal chair

Fell thirst and famine scowl

A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.

Heard ye the din of battlet bray,

Lance to lance, and horse to horse?

Long years of havock urge their destined course, And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,

With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek usurper's‡ holy head!
Above, below, the rose of snow,

Twined with her blushing foe, we spread;
The bristled boar,§ in infant gore,

Wallows beneath the thorny shade.—

Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom! Edward, lo! to sudden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun,) Half of thy heart|| we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done).”

6 Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn

Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn;
In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But oh! what solemn scenes, on Snowdon's height
Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight-

Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul

No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.

All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia's issue, hail! Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow He repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray.

Enough for me; with joy I see

The different doom our fates assign.
Be thine despair, and sceptred care!
To triumph and to die are mine.'

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain height,
Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.

* Richard II. was deposed and starved to death.

The Wars of York and Lancaster.

Henry VI. who was murdered in the Tower.

Richard III. whose badge was a silver boar.
Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I.

Thomas Gray.

DIALOGUES.

QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.

BRUTUS, haughty and warm at times. CASSIUS, testy and very impassioned.

Cas. THAT you have wronged me doth appear in this—
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella,
For taking bribes here of the Sardians;
Wherein my letter (praying on his side,
Because I knew the man) were slighted off.

Bru. You wronged yourself to write in such a case.
Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet

That every nice offence should bear his comment.
Bru. Yet let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself

Cas.

Are much condemned to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold

To undeservers.

I an itching palm!

You know that you are Brutus that spake this,
Or, I avow, this speech were else your last.

Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head.
Chastisement!

Cas.

Bru.

Remember March, the Ides of March remember;
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?
What villain touched his body, that did stab
And not for justice? What! shall one of us
That struck the foremost man of all the world,
But for supporting robbers,—shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ?
And sell the mighty meed of our large honors
For so much trash, as may be grasped thus?—
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bay not me,

I'll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in: I am a soldier

Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Bru. Go to; you are not Cassius.