The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen, Satyrs, and sylvan boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial.

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids Amidst the vestal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing,

While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As, in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording sister's page.-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;

To Becalm His Fever 2937

n all at once together found, ilia's mingled world of sound. id our vain endeavors cease, vive the just designs of Greece: turn in all thy simple state! nfirm the tales her sons relate!

William Collins [1721-1759]

SIC, TO BECALM HIS FEVER

ARM me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
at, being ravished, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.

Ease my sick head,

And make my bed,

Thou power that canst sever

From me this ill,

And quickly still,

Though thou not kill

My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same

From a consuming fire

nto a gentle-licking flame, And make it thus expire.

Then make me weep

My pains asleep;

And give me such reposes
That I, poor I,
May think thereby
I live and die

'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,

Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.

Melt, melt my pains
With thy soft strains;

That, having ease me given,
With full delight

I leave this light,

And take my flight

For Heaven.

Robert Herrick [1591–1674)

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan,

(Laughed while he sat by the river,)

"The only way, since gods began

At a Solemn Music

weet music, they could succeed."

2939

pping his mouth to a hole in the reed, in power by the river.

eet, sweet, O Pan!

sweet by the river! weet, O great god Pan!

n the hill forgot to die, ilies revived, and the dragon-fly back to dream on the river.

beast is the great god Pan, gh as he sits by the river, poet out of a man:

gods sigh for the cost and pain,

eed which grows nevermore again eed with the reeds in the river.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
n harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse!
divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
gs with inbreathed sense able to pierce,
r high-raised phantasy present
sturbed Song of pure consent
before the sapphire-colored throne
Him that sits thereon,

tly shout and solemn jubilee;
e bright Seraphim in burning row
d uplifted angel-trumpets blow;
Cherubic host in thousand choirs
eir immortal harps of golden wires,

se just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
ymns devout and holy psalms

nging everlastingly:

on earth, with undiscording voice

tly answer that melodious noise;

we did, till disproportioned sin
gainst nature's chime, and with harsh din

Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we soon again renew that Song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long

To his celestial concert us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

John Milton [1608–1674]

WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE

ARIEL to Miranda:-Take

This slave of Music, for the sake

Of him who is the slave of thee,
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou can'st, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,

And, too intense, is turned to pain;
For by commission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who,
From life to life, must still pursue
Your happiness;-for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples, he
Lit

you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.

When you die, the silent Moon,

In her interlunar swoon,

Is not sadder in her cell

Than deserted Ariel.

When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,