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

VI.

    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.

VII.

Orpheus cou’d lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
      Sequacious of the lyre: 
But bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder higher: 
When to her organ vocal breath was giv’n,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d,
      Mistaking Earth for Heav’n.

GRAND CHORUS.

  As from the pow’r of sacred lays
     The spheres began to move,
  And sung the great Creator’s praise
    To all the Bless’d 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.

1743 Edition.

* * * * *

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

28. Song.

The wretch condemn’d with life to part,
  Still, still on hope relies;
And ev’ry pang that rends the heart,
  Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the glimm’ring taper’s light,
  Adorns and cheers the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
  Emits a brighter ray.

1816 Edition.

* * * * *

THOMAS GRAY.

29. Elegy written in a Country Church-yard.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
  The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
  And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
  And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
  And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r,
  The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand’ring near her secret bow’r,
  Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
  Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
  The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
  The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
  No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.