Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/120

104 The master saw the madness rise,

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;

And while he Heaven and Earth defied

Changed his hand and check'd his pride.

He chose a mournful Muse

Soft pity to infuse:

He sung Darius great and good,

By too severe a fate

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,

Fallen from his high estate.

And weltering in his blood;

Deserted, at his utmost need,

By those his former bounty fed;

On the bare earth exposed he lies

With not a friend to close his eyes.

—With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,

Revolving in his alter'd 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

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 crown'd, but Music won the cause.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,

Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again: