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,

ake the good the gods provide thee!

The many rend the skies with loud applause; Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. he prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

nd sighed and looked, sighed and looked, ghed and looked, and sighed again:

length, with love and wine at once opprest, he vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again: louder yet, and yet a louder strain! eak his bands of sleep asunder

d rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.

ark, hark! the horrid sound
Has raised up his head:

As awaked from the dead
d amazed he stares around.
venge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
e the Furies arise!

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,

d the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

ose are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain

And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain:

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew!

old how they toss their torches on high, w they point to the Persian abodes 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!

John Dryden

177

I

PERSONAL TALK

AM not One who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk—
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbors, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.

Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

life," you say,

"YET life,"

"is life; we have seen and see,

And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are fostered by the comment and the gibe."
Even be it so; yet still among your tribe,

Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them: sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!

W

INGS have we,-and as far as we can go,
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

Dreams, books, are each world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;
Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,—
The gentle Lady married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

OR can I not believe but that hereby

Great gains are mine; for thus I live remote
From evil-speaking; rancor, never sought,
Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie.

Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I

Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought:
And thus from day to day my little boat
Rocks in its harbor, lodging peaceably.
Blessings be with them-and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler carès-
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

178

William Wordsworth

OST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes

MOST

To pace the ground, if path be there or none,

While a fair region round the traveler lies

Which he forbears again to look upon;

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,

The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse: