A SONG.

[From the folio, 1701.—ED.]

I.

Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,

I would not die, nor dare complain :
Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,
Thy words will more prevail than mine.
To souls oppressed, and dumb with grief,
The gods ordain this kind relief,
That music should in sounds convey,
What dying lovers dare not say.

II.

A sigh or tear, perhaps, she 'll give,

But love on pity cannot live.

Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,

And love with love is only paid.

Tell her my pains so fast increase,
That soon they will be past redress;

But, ah! the wretch that speechless lies,
Attends but death to close his eyes.

A SONG

то

A FAIR YOUNG LADY,

GOING OUT OF TOWN IN THE SPRING.

[This Song, a splendid example of its style, appeared in the Third Miscellany, 1693.-ED.]

I.

Ask not the cause, why sullen spring
So long delays her flowers to bear?
Why warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year? *
Chloris is gone, and fate provides
To make it spring where she resides.

II.

Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;

She cast not back a pitying eye;

But left her lover in despair,

To sigh, to languish, and to die.

Ah, how can those fair eyes endure,

To give the wounds they will not cure!

*[Cf. "time turned up the wrong side of the year.”—The Hind and the Panther, iii. 438.-ED.]

III.

Great god of love, why hast thou made
A face that can all hearts command,
That all religions can invade,

And change the laws of every land? Where thou hadst placed such power before, Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.

IV.

When Chloris to the temple comes,
Adoring crowds before her fall;
She can restore the dead from tombs,
And every life but mine recall.
I only am, by love, designed
To be the victim for mankind.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST,

OR

THE POWER OF MUSIC;

AN ODE IN HONOUR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

This celebrated Ode was written for the Saint's Festival in 1697, when the following stewards officiated: Hugh Colvill, Esq.; Capt. Thomas Newman; Orlando Bridgeman, Esq.; Theophilus Buller, Esq.; Leonard Wessell, Esq.; Paris Slaughter, Esq.; Jeremiah Clarke, Gent.; and Francis Rich, Gent. The merits of this unequalled effusion of lyrical poetry are fully discussed in the general criticism.

I.

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft, in awful state,

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne.

His valiant peers were placed around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So should desert in arms be crowned.)

The lovely Thais,* by his side,

Sate like a blooming eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

* [Originally written by a slip "Lais." See Letters.—ED.]

CHORUS.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

II.

Timotheus, placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above,
(Such is the power of mighty love.)
A dragon's fiery form belied the god;
Sublime on radiant spires* he rode,

When he to fair Olympia + pressed,

And while he sought her snowy breast;
Then, round her slender waist he curled,
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign
of the world.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity! they shout around;

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound.

With ravished ears,

The monarch hears;
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

* [Not "spheres," as it is sometimes wrongly printed. -ED.]

+ [I do not know why Dryden did not write Olympias, unless it was to avoid too much sibillation.-ED.]