I journeyed many roads; I knocked at gates; I met, and said, "A heritage awaits Of news? some message sent to me whereby Some asked me in; naught lay beyond their door; But said that men were just behind who bore And so the morn, the noon, the day, were spent, At last one cried, whose face I could not see, Hath no man told thee that thou art joint heir The one named Christ I sought for many days, I heard men name his name in many ways; But they who named him most gave me no sign And when at last I stood before his face, Save subtle air of joy which filled the place; In solemn silence I received my share, My share! No deed of house or spreading lands, Heaped up with gold; my elder brother's hands Foxes have holes, and birds in nests are fed : My share! The right like him to know all pain In bitter tears; the right with him to keep My share! To-day men call it grief and death; I thank my Father with my every breath, And through my tears I call to each "joint heir" HELEN HUNT JACKSON. SYMPATHY. FROM "10N," ACT I. SC. 2. "T IS a little thing To give a cup of water; yet its draught "Poor child, what evil ones have hindered thee To know the bonds of fellowship again; Till this whole day is wasted? And shed on the departing soul a sense, More precious than the benison of friends About the honored death-bed of the rich, To him who else were lonely, that another Of the great family is near and feels. SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. CHORUS. With ravished ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres. ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician OF MUSIC. AN ODE. 'T WAS 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 None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. CHORUS. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. Timotheus, placed on high Amid the tuneful choir, With flying fingers touched the lyre ; The trembling notes ascend the sky, When he to fair Olympia pressed, The listening crowd admire the lofty sound, With ravished ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres. Soothed with the sound the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. The master saw the madness rise; He sung Darius, great and good, By too severe a fate, And weltering in his blood; The various turns of chance below; 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. The mighty master smiled, to see Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, 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, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, CHORUS. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gazed on the fair Who caused his care, And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, Now strike the golden lyre again : And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark, the horrid sound Has raised up his head ; As awaked from the dead, Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries, See the furies arise ! See the snakes that they rear, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain, Inglorious on the plain : Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, Timotheus, to his breathing flute, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 'Though so exalted she, And I so lowly be, Next Anger rushed; his eyes, on fire, Tell her, such different notes make all thy har- In one rude clash he struck the lyre, mony. Hark! how the strings awake: And swept with hurried hand the strings. And, though the moving hand approach not near, A solemn, strange, and mingled air ; A kind of numerous trembling make. Now all thy charms apply; Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye. Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure Is useless here, since thou art only found To cure, but not to wound, And she to wound, but not to cure. Too weak, too, wilt thou prove My passion to remove ; Physic to other ills, thou 'rt nourishment to love. Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre! For thou canst never tell my humble tale In sounds that will prevail, Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire; Bid thy strings silent lie, 'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild. But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, What was thy delightful measure? Still it whispered promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! Still would her touch the strain prolong; And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She called on Echo still, through all the song; And where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair. And longer had she sung- but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose ; He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down; And, with a withering look, Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe ! die. ABRAHAM COWLEY. THE PASSIONS. AN ODE FOR MUSIC. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made. And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And though, sometimes, each dreary pause be tween, Dejected Pity, at his side, Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild, unaltered mien, While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed,Sad proof of thy distressful state; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed; And now it courted Love, now, raving, called on Hate. With eyes upraised, as one inspired, And from her wild sequestered seat, And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled meas ure stole ; Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, But O, how altered was its sprightlier tone rung, The hunter's call, to faun and dryad known! The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Feeping 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 addrest; 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 festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, As if he would the charming air repay, O Music! sphere-descended maid, Where is thy native simple heart, WILLIAM COLLINS. THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG. FROM "MUSIC'S DUEL." Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams Close in the covert of the leaves there stood This lesson too She gives them back; her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys float, And roll themselves over her lubric throat His honey-dropping tops ploughed by her breath In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, In cream of morning Helicon, and then To woo them from their beds, still murmuring |