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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,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

CHORUS

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

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Now strike the golden lyre again;

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A louder yet, and yet a louder strain;

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

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And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

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Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,

And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain :

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

CHORUS

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

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Thus long ago,

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Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,

While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

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With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.

GRAND CHORUS

At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

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He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.

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ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744

POPE was the most notable literary figure of his time, just as Dryden was of the preceding age. He was born in London, the son of a prosperous linen merchant, and to his dying day he was the poet of the town rather than of the country. The talk of the coffee-houses, the chatter of the drawing-room, the buzz of court gossip, these were the things that filled the atmosphere which Pope loved to breathe.

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His poetic activity began at an early age and continued, despite lifelong ill health, until the end. He wrote epistles, pastorals, satires, and translated poems from the classics. His best known works are The Rape of the Lock, The Essay on Criticism, The Essay on Man, The Dunciad, translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, and his Epistles. All these works are written in highly polished verse, and are witty, terse, and brilliant.

Pope's many weaknesses of character - his waspish temper, his vanity, his untruthfulness—may charitably be set down to his chronic ill health. His life, he said, was "one long disease." He understood only too well the gentle art of making enemies, but he also had stanch friends. His devotion to his aged mother, whom he tenderly cared for in her dotage and treated as if she were a duchess instead of the plain wife of a plain linen merchant, reveals to us the nobler side of this deformed sharptongued satirist.

Pope's last years were spent at Twickenham, a small village on the Thames a few miles above London. Here he built himself a handsome villa, and here his London friends came to visit him and pour into his eager ears the talk of the town. Here, until the end, he welcomed his friends and cultivated his lawns; nor did he forget to send occasional shafts at his enemies.

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From

THE EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT

P. Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

The dog-star rages! nay, 't is past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walks can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide,
By land, by water, they renew the charge,
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson much be-mus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,

Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

Friend to my life; (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped,
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead
Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!

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