With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

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.

5

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 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

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

CHORUS.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

6

Now strike the golden lyre again;

120

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain,

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

125

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,

And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain:

140

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!

145

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.

150

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,

7

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;

155

160

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

165

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

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.

180

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.

1

IMITATED FROM CHAUCER, AND ENLARGED.

a

A PARISH-PRIEST was of deploranda; a
An awful, reverend, and religions man.
His eyes diffuse a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor,
(As God hath clothed his own ambassador);
For such on earth his blessed Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seemed; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere.
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,
But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity;
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed;

5

C

Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed;
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky:
And oft with holy hymns he charmed their ears
(A music more melodious than the spheres):
For David left him, when he went to rest,
His lyre; and after him he sung the best.
He bore his great commission in his look:
But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.
He preached the joys of Heaven and pains of Hell,
And warned the sinner with becoming zeal;

But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the gospel rather than the law;
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.
For fear but freezes minds; but love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime, to seek her native seat.

IO

15

20

25

30

To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard,

Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared ;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,

35

He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.
Lightnings and thunder (Heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly:
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there.
The tithes his parish freely paid he took;
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book.
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none:
Since every man is free to lose his own.
The country churls, according to their kind,

40

45

(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind),

The less he sought his offerings, pinched the more,
And praised a priest contented to be poor.

Yet of his little he had some to spare,

50

To feed the famished, and to clothe the bare:
For mortified he was to that degree,

A poorer than himself he would not see.

True priests, he said, and preachers of the word,

Were only stewards of their sovereign Lord,
Nothing was theirs; but all the public store,
Entrusted riches to relieve the poor;
Who, should they steal, for want of his relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the thief.

55

Wide was his parish; not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house:
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick, to succour the distressed; ·
Tempting, on foot, alone, without affright,
The dangers of a dark tempestuous night. -

60

65

All this the good old man performed alone,
Nor spared his pains; for curate he had none.
Nor durst he trust another with his care;
Nor rode himself to Paul's, the public fair,
To chaffer for preferment with his gold,
Where bishoprics and sinecures are so,

70

But duly watched his flock, by night and day;