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CHORUS.

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, oh, 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

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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!

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.

A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
"Arise, ye more than dead."

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:

From harmony to harmony.

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the corded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.

Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell,

That spoke so sweetly and so well.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

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Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre:

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appeared
Mistaking earth for heaven.

GRAND CHORUS.

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blessed above;

So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF JOHN | But guide us upward to a better day.

MILTON.

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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.

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[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:

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