Now, now’s our time! ye wretches bold and blind, Brave but to God, and cowards to mankind; Ye seek in vain the Lord, unsought before-- Your wealth, your lives, your kingdom, are no more! _Air._ O Lucifer! thou son of morn, Of Heaven alike and man the foe-- Heaven, men, and all, Now press thy fall, And sink thee lowest of the low. [Illustration] FIRST PROPHET. O Babylon! how art thou fallen-- Thy fall more dreadful from delay! Thy streets forlorn To wilds shall turn, Where toads shall pant, and vultures prey! SECOND PROPHET. _Recitative._ Such be her fate! But, hark! how from afar The clarion’s note proclaims the finish’d war! Cyrus, our great restorer, is at hand, And this way leads his formidable band. Now give your songs of Zion to the wind, And hail the benefactor of mankind: He comes, pursuant to Divine decree, To chain the strong, and set the captive free. CHORUS OF YOUTHS. Rise to raptures past expressing, Sweeter from remember’d woes; Cyrus comes, our wrongs redressing, Comes to give the world repose. CHORUS OF VIRGINS. Cyrus comes, the world redressing, Love and pleasure in his train; Comes to heighten every blessing, Comes to soften every pain. SEMI-CHORUS. Hail to him, with mercy reigning, Skill’d in every peaceful art; Who, from bonds our limbs unchaining, Only binds the willing heart. THE LAST CHORUS. But chief to Thee, our God, our Father, Friend, Let praise be given to all eternity; O Thou, without beginning, without end-- Let us, and all, begin and end in Thee! [Illustration] [Illustration: THE HAUNCH OF VENISON AN EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE.] Thanks, my lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter Ne’er rang’d in a forest, or smok’d in a platter: The haunch was a picture for painters to study-- The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy. Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting To spoil such a delicate picture by eating: I had thoughts in my chamber to place it in view, To be shown to my friends as a piece of _virtù_; As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show;-- But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They’d as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. But hold--let me pause--Don’t I hear you pronounce This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce? Well, suppose it a bounce--sure a poet may try, By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly. But, my lord, it’s no bounce: I protest in my turn, It’s a truth--and your lordship may ask Mr. Byrne.[8]