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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Alexander's Feast; Or, The Power Of Music</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won<br>By Philip's warlike son— <br>Aloft in awful state<br>The godlike hero sate<br>On his imperial throne;<br>His valiant peers were placed around,<br>Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound<br>(So should desert in arms be crowned);<br>The lovely Thais by his side<br>Sate like a blooming eastern bride<br>In flower of youth and beauty's pride:— <br>Happy, happy, happy pair!<br>None but the brave<br>None but the brave<br>None but the brave deserves the fair!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Timotheus placed on high<br>Amid the tuneful quire<br>With flying fingers touched the lyre;<br>The trembling notes ascend the sky<br>And heavenly joys inspire.<br>The song began from Jove<br>Who left his blissful seats above— <br>Such is the power of mighty love!<br>A dragon's fiery form belied the god<br>Sublime on radiant spires he rode<br>When he to fair Olympia prest,<br>And while he sought her snowy breast,<br>Then round her slender waist he curled,<br>And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.<br>- The listening crowd admire the lofty sound!<br>A present deity! they shout around:<br>A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound!<br>With ravished ears<br>The monarch hears,<br>Assumes the god,<br>Affects to nod,<br>And seems to shake the spheres.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,<br>Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:<br>The jolly god in triumph comes!<br>Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!<br>Flushed with a purple grace<br>He shows his honest face:<br>Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!<br>Bacchus, ever fair and young,<br>Drinking joys did first ordain;<br>Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,<br>Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:<br>Rich the treasure,<br>Sweet the pleasure,<br>Sweet is pleasure after pain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;<br>Fought all his battles o'er again,<br>And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.<br>The master saw the madness rise,<br>His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;<br>And while he Heaven and Earth defied<br>Changed his hand and checked his pride.<br>He chose a mournful Muse<br>Soft pity to infuse:<br>He sung Darius great and good,<br>By too severe a fate<br>Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,<br>Fallen from his high estate,<br>And weltering in his blood;<br>Deserted, at his utmost need,<br>By those his former bounty fed;<br>On the bare earth exposed he lies<br>With not a friend to close his eyes.<br>- With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,<br>Revolving in his altered soul<br>The various turns of Chance below;<br>And now and then a sigh he stole,<br>And tears began to flow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The mighty master smiled to see<br>That love was in the next degree;<br>'Twas but a kindred-sound to move,<br>For pity melts the mind to love.<br>Softly sweet, in Lydian measures<br>Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.<br>War, he sung, is toil and trouble,<br>Honour but an empty bubble;<br>Never ending, still beginning,<br>Fighting still, and still destroying;<br>If the world be worth thy winning,<br>Think, O think, it worth enjoying:<br>Lovely Thais sits beside thee,<br>Take the good the gods provide thee!<br>- The many rend the skies with loud applause;<br>So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.<br>The prince, unable to conceal his pain,<br>Gazed on the fair<br>Who caused his care,<br>And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,<br>Sighed and looked, and sighed again:<br>At length with love and wine at once opprest<br>The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now strike the golden lyre again:<br>A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!<br>Break his bands of sleep asunder</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.<br>Hark, hark! the horrid sound<br>Has raised up his head:<br>As awaked from the dead<br>And amazed he stares around.<br>Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,<br>See the Furies arisel<br>See the snakes that they rear<br>How they hiss in their hair,<br>And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!<br>Behold a ghastly band,<br>Each a torch in his hand!<br>Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain<br>And unburied remain<br>Inglorious on the plain:<br>Give the vengeance due<br>To the valiant crew!<br>Behold how they toss their torches on high,<br>How they point to the Persian abodes<br>And glittering temples of their hostile gods.<br>- The princes applaud with a furious joy:<br>And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;<br>Thais led the way<br>To light him to his prey,<br>And like another Helen, fired another Troy!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419799" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">- Thus, long ago,<br>Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,<br>While organs yet were mute,<br>Timotheus, to his breathing flute<br>And sounding lyre,<br>Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.<br>At last divine Cecilia came,<br>Inventress of the vocal frame;<br>The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store<br>Enlarged the former narrow bounds,<br>And added length to solemn sounds,<br>With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.<br>- Let old Timotheus yield the prize<br>Or both divide the crown;<br>He raised a mortal to the skies;<br>She drew an angel down!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=John+Dryden">John Dryden</a></strong></div>