Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/65

 

The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation.
Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

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 appear’d—
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 blest 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.
J. Dryden

lxiv

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT

Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughter’d Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones