"TIS WHEN THE CUP IS SMILING. Was it for this that her shout

A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THESE Verses were written for a Benefit at the Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, with a degree of success, which they owed solely to her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote them in haste, and it very rarely happens that poetry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I should not have published them, if they had not found their way into some of the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to their own original stock, that I thought it but fair to limit their responsibility to those faults alone which really belong to them.

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With respect to the title which I have invented for this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of the Roman Senate for using the outlandish term Monopoly.' But the truth is, having written the Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I thought that an unintelligible word of this kind would not be without its attraction for the multitude; with whom, 'If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek.' To some of my readers, however, it may not be superfluous to say, that by 'Melologue' I mean that mixture of recitation and music, which is frequently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode on the Passions, and of which the most striking example I can remember, is the prophetic speech of Joad, in the Athalie of Racine.

T. M.

INTRODUCTORY MUSIC-Haydn.

There breathes the language, known and felt
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone,
Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt

That language of the soul is felt and known.
From those meridian plains,

(Where oft, of old, on some high tower,
The soft Peruvian pour'd his midnight strains,
And call'd his distant love with such sweet power
That when she heard the lonely lay,

Not worlds could keep her from his arms away1)

A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her to his home, but she cried "For God's sake, sir, let me go; for that pipe which you hear in yonder tower calls me with great

passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife and he my husband."-Garcilasso de la Vega, in Sir Paul Rycaut's translation.

To the bleak climes of polar night,
Where, beneath a sunless sky,

The Lapland lover bids his reindeer fly,

And sings along the lengthening waste of snow,
As blithe as if the blessed light

Of vernal Phoebus burn'd upon his brow.
O Music! thy celestial claim

Is still resistless, still the same!

And faithful as the mighty sea

To the pale star that o'er its realm presides,
The spell-bound tides

Of human passion rise and fall for thee!

GREEK AIR.

LIST! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While from Ilissus' silvery springs

She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn;
And by her side, in music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return;
When Athens nursed her olive bough
With hands, by tyrant power unchain'd,
And braided for the Muse's brow
A wreath, by tyrant touch unstain'd.
When heroes trod each classic field,
Where coward feet now faintly falter;
When every arm was Freedom's shield,
And every heart was Freedom's altar.

FLOURISH OF TRUMPET.

HARK! 'tis the sound that charms
The war-steed's wakening ears!—
Oh! many a mother folds her arms

Round her boy-soldier, when that call she hears,
And though her fond heart sink with fears,
Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
With valour's fervour at the sound!

See! from his native hills afar,
The rude Helvetian flies to war,
Careless for what, for whom he fights,
For slave or despot, wrongs or rights;
A conqueror oft-a hero never-
Yet lavish of his life-blood still,

As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
And gush'd for ever!

O Music! here, even here,

Amid this thoughtless wild career,

Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power.

There is an air, which oft among the rocks

Of his own loved land, at evening hour,

Is heard when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks:
Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind

With tenderest thoughts-would bring around his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind,
And fill each little angel eye

With speaking tears that ask him why

He wander'd from his hut for scenes like these?
Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet notes of home-of love are all he hears,

And the stern eyes, that look'd for blood before,
Now melting mournful lose themselves in tears!

SWISS AIR.

BUT wake the trumpet's blast again,
And rouse the ranks of warrior men!
O War! when Truth thy arm employs,
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
'Tis then thy vengeance takes a hallow'd form,
And like heaven's lightning sacredly destroys!
Nor Music! through thy breathing sphere,
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of him who made all harmony,

Than the blest sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn that man, awaking

From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty!

SPANISH AIR.

HARK! from Spain, indignant Spain,
Bursts the bold enthusiast strain,
Like morning's music on the air,
And seems in every note to swear,

By Saragossa's ruin'd streets,

By brave Gerona's deathful story,

That while one Spaniard's life-blood beats,
That blood shall stain the Conqueror's glory!
But ah! if vain the patriot's zeal,

If neither valour's force nor wisdom's light

Can break or melt that blood-cemented seal,
Which shuts so close the book of Europe's right-
What song shall then in sadness tell
Of broken pride, of prospects shaded;
Of buried hopes, remember'd well,
Of ardour quench'd and honour faded?

What muse shall mourn the breathless brave,
In sweetest dirge at memory's shrine?

What harp shall sigh o'er Freedom's grave? O Erin! thine'

IRISH AIR-Gramachree.

THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS.

1823.

PREFACE.

THIS Poem, somewhat different in form, and much more limited in extent, was originally designed as an episode for a work about which I have been, at intervals, employed during the last two years. Some months since, however, I found that my friend Lord Byron had, by an accidental coincidence, chosen the same subject for a drama; and as 1 could not but feel the disadvantage of coming after so formidable a rival, I thought it best to publish my humble sketch immediately, with such alterations and additions as I had time to make, and thus, by an earlier appearance in the literary horizon, give myself the chance of what astronomers call an Heliacal rising, before the luminary, in whose light I was to be lost, should appear.

As objections may be made, by persons whose opinions I respect, to the selection of a subject of this nature from the Scripture, I think it right to remark that, in point of fact, the subject is not scriptural-the notion upon which it is founded (that of the love of angels for women) having originated in an erroneous translation by the LXX. of that verse in the sixth chapter of Genesis, upon which the sole authority for the fable rests. The foundation of my story, therefore, has as little to do with Holy Writ as have the dreams of the latter Platonists, or the reveries of the Jewish divines; and, in appropriating the notion thus to the uses of poetry, I have done no more than establish it in that region of fiction, to which the opinions of the most rational Fathers, and of all other Christian theologians, have long ago consigned it.

In addition to the fitness of the subject for poetry, it struck me also as

The error of these interpreters (and, it is said, of the old Italic version also) was in making it oi Ayyeλol Tov Ocov, the Angels of God,' instead of the Sousa mistake which, assisted by the allegorizing comments of Philo, and the rhapsodical fictions of the Book of Enoch, was more than sufficient to affect the imaginations of such half-Pagan writers as Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and Lactantius, who, chiefly among the Fathers, have indulged themselves in fanciful reveries upon the subject. The greater number, however, have rejected the fiction with indignation. Chrysostom, in his twenty-second Homily upon Genesis, earnestly exposes its absurdity; and Cyril accounts such a supposition as eyyus pwpias, 'bordering on folly. According to these Fathers (and their opinion has been followed by all the theologians, down from St. Thomas to Caryl and Lightfoot), the term 'Sons of God' must be

understood to mean the descendants of Seth, by Enos-a family peculiarly favoured by Heaven, because with them men first began to call upon the name of the Lord '--while, by the daughters of men' they suppose that the corrupt race of Cain is designated. The probability, however, is, that the words in question ought to have been translated the sons of the nobles or great men,' as we find them interpreted in the Targum of Onkelos (the most ancient and accurate of all the Chaldaic paraphrases), and as, it appears from Cyril, the version of Symmachus also rendered them. This translation of the passage removes all difficulty, and at once relieves the Sacred History of an extravagance, which, however it may suit the imagination of the poet, is inconsistent with all our notions, both philosophical and religious.