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;
Honour 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 Thaïs 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.

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;
Thaïs 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.

From RELIGIO LAICI.

On the Critical History of the Old Testament,
by the learned Father Simon.

Witness this weighty book, in which appears
The crabbed toil of many thoughtful years,
Spent by the author, in the sifting care
Of rabbins' old sophisticated ware

From gold divine; which he who well can sort
May afterwards make algebra a sport.

A treasure which, if country curates buy,
They Junius and Tremellius may defy;

Save pains in various readings and translations; And without Hebrew make most learn'd quotations.

The strait gate would be made straiter yet
Were none admitted there but men of wit.

From THE HIND AND PANTHER.

Line 33.

For Truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be loved needs only to be seen.

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.

From the EPISTLE TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

Shadows are but privations of the light,
Yet when we walk they shoot before the sight,
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all. . . .

CHARLES SACKVILLE,

EARL OF DORSET.

SONG.

[Written at Sea in the first Dutch War, 1665, the Night before an Engagement.]

To all you ladies now on land
We men at sea indite,

But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,

We must implore to write to you.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.

Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost,
By Dutchman, or by wind;

Our tears we'll send a speedier way,
The tide shall bring them twice a day.

The king, with wonder and surprise,
Will say the seas grow bold;
Because the tides will higher rise
Than e'er they used of old;
But let him know, it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall Stairs.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know
Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
And quit their fort at Goree ;

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind?

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind; . .

'Tis then no matter how things go,
Or who's our friend, or who's our foe.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main,
Or else at serious ombre play-
But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
Sit careless at a play;

Perhaps permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,

As if it sighed with each man's care
For being so remote,

Think how often love we've made

To you, when all those tunes were played.

And now we've told you all our loves,

And likewise all our fears;
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity from your tears;
Let's hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.