In the second part there is another tone both to scene and music. The opening chorus of alarm ("Wretched Lovers") portends the coming of the love-sick Cyclops; the mountains bow, the forests shake, the waves run frightened to the shore as he approaches roaring and calling for "a hundred reeds of decent growth," that on "such pipe" his capacious mouth may play the praises of Galatea. The recitative, "I melt, I rage, I burn," is very characteristic, and leads to the giant's love-song, an unctuous, catching melody almost too full of humor and grace for the fierce brute of Ætna:-- "O ruddier than the cherry! O sweeter than the berry! O nymph more bright Than moonshine night, Like kidlings, blithe and merry. "Ripe as the melting cluster, No lily has such lustre. Yet hard to tame As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster." In marked contrast with this declaration follows the plaintive tender song of Acis ("Love sounds the Alarm"). Galatea appeals to him to trust the gods, and then the three join in a trio ("The Flocks shall leave the Mountain"). Enraged at his discomfiture, the giant puts forth his power. He is no longer the lover piping to Galatea and dissembling his real nature, but a destructive raging force; and the fragment of mountain which he tears away buries poor Acis as effectually as Ætna sometimes does the plains beneath. The catastrophe accomplished, the work closes with the sad lament of Galatea for her lover ("Must I my Acis still bemoan?") and the choral consolations of the shepherds and their swains:-- "Galatea, dry thy tears, Acis now a god appears; See how he rears him from his bed! See the wreath that binds his head! Hail! thou gentle murmuring stream; Shepherds' pleasure, Muses' theme; Through the plains still joy to rove, Murmuring still thy gentle love." [21] The superior attractions of the English serenata will probably prevent the earlier work from ever becoming a popular favorite; more especially since the rôle of Polifemo needs a bass singer with a voice of the extraordinary compass of two octaves and a half.--_Rockstro's Life of Handel_. [22] Miss Arne, afterwards Mrs. Cibber, enjoyed, under the latter name, a great reputation as a singer. Her husband was Theophilus Cibber, the brother of Colley Cibber, a poet laureate in the reign of George II.--_Schoelcher's Life of Handel_.