Chorus of Athenians
STROPHE I YE shades, where sacred truth is sought, | |
| Groves, where immortal sages taught, | |
| Where heav’nly visions Plato fired, | |
| And Epicurus lay inspired! | |
| In vain your guiltless laurels stood | 5 |
| Unspotted long with human blood. | |
| War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, | |
| And steel now glitters in the Muses’ shades. | |
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ANTISTROPHE I O Heav’n-born sisters! source of Art! | |
| Who charm the sense, or mend the heart; | 10 |
| Who lead fair Virtue’s train along, | |
| Moral Truth and mystic Song! | |
| To what new clime, what distant sky, | |
| Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly? | |
| Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore? | 15 |
| Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more? | |
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STROPHE II When Athens sinks by fates unjust, | |
| When wild Barbarians spurn her dust; | |
| Perhaps ev’n Britain’s utmost shore | |
| Shall cease to blush with strangers’ gore, | 20 |
| See Arts her savage sons control, | |
| And Athens rising near the pole! | |
| Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand, | |
| And civil madness tears them from the land. | |
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ANTISTROPHE II Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball? | 25 |
| Freedom and Arts together fall; | |
| Fools grant whate’er Ambition craves, | |
| And men, once ignorant, are slaves. | |
| O curs’d effects of civil hate, | |
| In ev’ry age, in ev’ry state! | 30 |
| Still, when the lust of tyrant Power succeeds, | |
| Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds. | |
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