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, ob 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.

CHORUS.

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.

VI.

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.

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.

VII.

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.

GRAND CHORUS.

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.

VENI CREATOR.

Creator Spirit, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come, visit every pious mind;

Come, pour thy joys on humankind;

From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make thy temples worthy thee.
O source of uncreated light,
The Father's promised Paraclete!
Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire,

Our hearts with heavenly love inspire;
Come, and thy sacred unction bring,
To sanctify us while we sing.

Plenteons of grace, descend from high,
Rich in thy sevenfold energy!

Thou strength of his Almighty hand,
Whose power does heaven and earth command;
Proceeding Spirit, our defence,

Who dost the gifts of tongues dispense,
And crown'st thy gifts with eloquence!
Refine and purge our earthly parts;
But, oh inflame and fire our hearts!
Our frailties help, our vice control,
Submit the senses to the soul;
And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay thine hand, and hold them down.
Chase from our minds the infernal foe,

And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;
And, lest our feet should step astray,
Protect and guide us in the way.

Make us eternal truths receive;
And practise all that we believe:
Give us thyself, that we may see
The Father, and the Son, by thee.

Immortal honor, endless fame,
Attend the Almighty Father's name!
The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost man's redemption died!
And equal adoration be,
Eternal Paraclete, to thee!

SHAFTESBURY DELINEATED AS ACHITO

PHEL.

FROM "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL,"

Of these the false Achitophel was first-
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crookéd counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o'er informed its tenement of clay:

A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went

high,

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honors blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son!

BUCKINGHAM DELINEATED AS ZIMRI. FROM "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL."

Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
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.

:

ENJOY THE PRESENT.
PARAPHRASE FROM HORACE, BOOK I., ODE XXIX.
Enjoy the present smiling hour,
And put it out of Fortune's power:

The tide of business, like the running stream,
Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,
And always in extreme.

Now with a noiseless, gentle course

It keeps within the middle bed;
Anon it lifts aloft the head,

And bears down all before it with impetuous force;
And trunks of trees come rolling down;
Sheep and their folds together drown;
Both house and homestead into seas are borne;
And rocks are from their old foundations torn;
And woods, made thin with winds, their scattered
honors mourn.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own;

He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day!
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine;

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine!
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my
hour.

Fortune, that with malicious joy

Does mau, her slave, oppress,
Prond of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleased to bless:
Still various, and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,

Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she's kind;

But when she dances in the wind,

And shakes the wings, and will not stay,

I puff the prostitute away!

The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned: Content with poverty, my soul I arm;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

What is't to me,

Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,

If storms arise, and clouds grow black,
If the mast split and threaten wreck?
Then let the greedy merchant fear
For his ill-gotten gain,

And pray to gods that will not hear, While the debating winds and billows bear His wealth into the main.

For me, secure from Fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,
In my small pinnace I can sail,

Contemuing all the blustering roar;
And, running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek
Within some little winding creek,
And see the storm ashore.

Katharine Phillips.

Daughter of Mr. John Fowler, a London merchant, Katharine Phillips (1631-1664) showed genuine poetical taste and ability. She was a friend of Jeremy Taylor, who addressed to her a "Discourse on Friendship." She wrote under the name of Orinda, was praised by Roscommon and Cowley, and had the friendship of many of the eminent authors of her day. She translated two of the tragedies of Corneille, and left a volume of letters, which was published after her death. Her poems were very popular in her lifetime, but their fame has been evanscent.

Earl of Roscommon.

Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon (1634–1685), was the nephew of the great Earl of Strafford, after whose fall on the scaffold he was sent to Caen to pursue his studies. While there he succeeded to the title of Roscommon. Aubrey tells a story that the youth had a presentiment of his father's death, and exclaimed, “My father is dead!" one day while he was engaged with some boys at play, at least a fortnight before the intelligence arrived from Ireland. Roscommon's chief work is called "An Essay on Translated Verse;" he also translated Horace's "Art of Poetry," and wrote minor poems. Just before he died he uttered two lines of his own paraphrase of Thomas de Celano's "Dies Iræ:"

"My God, my Father, and my Friend,

Do not forsake me in my end!"

His mortal remains were interred with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. To his honor let it be said that he well deserved this tribute from Pope:

"Unhappy Dryden! In all Charles's days,

Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays."

Living in the foul times of the second Charles, he refused to soil his pages with the ribaldry and grossness which the popular taste seemed then to demand. He wrote this couplet:

"Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense."

Benjamin Franklin, in no hypercritical spirit, suggested not a bad amendment of the couplet, thus:

"Immodest words admit but this defence:
That want of decency is want of sense."

Thus make the proper use of each extreme,
And write with fury, but correct with phlegm.
As when the cheerful hours too freely pass,
And sparkling wine smiles in the tempting glass,
Your pulse advises, and begins to beat
Through every swelling vein a loud retreat:
So when a Muse propitiously invites,
Improve her favors, and indulge her flights;
But when you find that vigorous heat abate,
Leave off, and for another summons wait.
Before the radiant sun a glimmering lamp,
Adult'rate metals to the sterling stamp,
Appear not meaner than mere human lines
Compared with those whose inspiration shines:
These nervous, bold; those languid and remiss;
There cold salutes, but here a lover's kiss.
Thus have I seen a rapid, headlong tide
With foaming waves the passive Saône divide,
Whose lazy waters without motion lay,
While he with eager force urged his impetuous way.

Thomas Ken.

Ken (1637-1711) was educated at Oxford, became chaplain to Charles II., and was one of the seven bishops sent to the Tower for resisting the tyranny of James II. A meeker and a braver man than Ken never lived. His hymns are still deservedly esteemed. He published an epic poem entitled "Edmund," and was the author of several approved devotional works.

But what they feel transport them when they write.
Have you been led through the Cumaan cave,
And heard th' impatient maid divinely rave?
I hear her now; I see her rolling eyes;
And, panting, "Lo, the god, the god!" she cries:
With words not hers, and more than human sound,
She makes th' obedient ghosts peep, trembling,
through the ground.

But though we must obey when Heaven commands,
And man in vain the sacred call withstands,
Beware what spirit rages in your breast;
For ten inspired ten thousand are possest.

The faster sleep the senses binds, The more unfettered are our minds. Ob, may my soul, from matter free, Thy loveliness unclouded see!

Oh, may my Guardian,' while I sleep,
Close to my bed his vigils keep;
His love angelical instil,
Stop all the avenues of ill.

May he celestial joys rehearse,

And thought to thought with me converse;
Or, in my stead, all the night long,
Sing to my God a grateful song.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Thomas Otway.

The son of a clergyman, Otway (1651-1685) was born ia Sussex. Leaving Oxford without a degree, he appeared on the stage in 1672 as an actor, but failed. He tan got a commission in the army in Flanders, but was cashiered. He wrote for the stage, and several of his picces were quite successful; but he was continually in the direst poverty, and he is alleged by some to have ded of voraciously eating a piece of bread after a long compulsory fast. His fame rests chiefly on his "Venire Preserved," in which there are passages of great dramatic power. He wrote some miscellaneous poems, but their merit is very humble.

FROM "VENICE PRESERVED."

ACT IV., SCENE II.

Pierre. What whining monk art thon? what holy cheat,

That wouldst encroach upon my credulous ears, And cant'st thus vilely? Hence! I know thee not! Jaff. Not know me, Pierre!

Pierre. No, know thee not! What art thou? Jaff. Jaffier, thy friend, thy once loved, valued

friend!

Tho' now deservedly scorned and used most hardly. Pierre. Thou Jaffier! thou my once loved, valued friend!

Was generous, honest, faithful, just, and valiant;
Noble in mind, and in his person lovely;
Dear to my eyes, and tender to my heart:
But thou, a wretched, base, false, worthless coward,
Poor even in soul, and loathsome in thy aspect!
All eyes must shun thee, and all hearts detest thee.
Prithee, avoid, no longer cling thus round me,
Like something baneful, that my nature's chilled at.
Jaff. I have not wronged thee; by these tears,
I have not.

Pierre. Hast thou not wronged me? Dar'st thou

call thyself Jaffier,

That once loved, valued friend of mine,

And swear thou hast not wronged me? Whence these chains?

Whence the vile death which I may meet this moment?

Whence this dishonor but from thee, thou false one? Jaff. All's true; yet grant one thing, and I've done asking.

Pierre. What's that?

Jaff. To take thy life on such conditions The council have proposed: thou and thy friends May yet live long, and to be better treated.

Pierre. Life! ask my life! confess! record myself
A villain for the privilege to breathe,
And carry up and down this cursed city
A discontented and repining spirit,
Burdensome to itself, a few years longer;
To lose it, maybe, at last, in a lewd quarrel
For some new friend, treacherous and false as thou
art!

No, this vile world and I have long been jangling,
And cannot part on better terms than now,
When only men like thee are fit to live in't.
Jaff. By all that's just-

Pierre. Swear by some other power,

For thou hast broke that sacred oath already.
Jaff. Then by that hell I merit, I'll not leave thee
Till to thyself at least thou'rt reconciled,
However thy resentments deal with me.

Pierre. Not leave me!

Jaff. No; thou shalt not force me from thee. Use me reproachfully and like a slave; Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs On my poor head: I'll bear it all with patience; Shall weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty; Lie at thy feet, and kiss them, though they spurn

me;

friend

That is, my Guardian Angel.

And raise me to thy arms with dear forgiveness. Pierre. Art thou not

Jaff. What?