ANTISTROPHE I. O heaven-born sisters! source of art! Who charm the sense, or mend the heart; Who lead fair virtue's train along, Moral truth and mystic song! To what new clime, what distant sky, Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore? STROPHE II. When Athens sinks by fates unjust, And Athens rising near the pole ! Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand, And civil madness tears them from the land. ANTISTROPHE II. Ye gods! what justice rules the ball? In every age, in every state! Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds. CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS. SEMICHORus. O tyrant Love! hast thou possest The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast? Why, virtue, dost thou blame desire CHORUS. Love's purer flames the gods approve; And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes. Spent in a sudden storm of lust, A vapour fed from wild desire, A wandering, self-consuming fire. Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light, SEMICHORUS. O source of every social tie, What tender passions take their turns His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns, CHORUS. Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises, Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine! EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER, PREFIXED TO PARNELL'S POEMS. SUCH were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh, just beheld and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd! Bless'd in each science! bless'd in every strain! Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear—in vain! For him thou oft hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him despis'd the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great, Dexterous the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit. Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear); Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays; Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall. And sure if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine; A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. SECRETARY OF STATE. A SOUL as full of worth as void of pride, |